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POEMS 
BY 

RICHARD 
REALF 



DOEMS BY / 

RICHARD REALF 



POET 

SOLDIER- •• 
WORKMAN 



WITH A MEMOIR BY 
RICHARD J. HINTON 




FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 



I898 



COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY FUNK AND 
WAGNALLS COMPANY. REGIS- 
TERED AT STATIONERS' HALL, 
LONDON, ENGLAND. PRINTED 
IN THE UNITED STATES 






rwo COPIES RECEIVED. 



M 201399 )) 






> ?£ 



FORE-WORDS. 



In presenting the collected poems of Richard Realf 
to the English-reading public, the editor disclaims any- 
special effort at criticism or literary skill, beyond that 
required to gather, fill in an occasional missing word, 
or to arrange the poems in some sequence of subjects. 
But he believes that, in fulfilling his modest but labori- 
ous and patient task of compilation and arrangement, 
the result will be found to be a genuine addition to the 
noble stock of English poetry, a real contribution in the 
loftier sense to true literature. 

The only merits claimed for the Memoir are the faith- 
ful feeling of friendship which directed the work, and 
the sincerity as well as charity of spirit which, I trust, 
has controlled the statement of facts and conditions that 
the writer would have been much more pleased to sup- 
press than express, even in the modified way that he 
has sought to accomplish the task. What the world 
really has to do with is the subjective work of the man; 
the outgiving of the spiritual forces that animated one 
who, however sadly marred were his outer" days, has 
left us a monumental record of his inner life and of the 
"mystic aspirations" which he so nobly expressed. 

Conscious that I shall be censured for delay in accom- 
plishing the work I can only say that I am sure the 



Poet's renown and my friend's name have both gained 
by delay, which, for at least ten years, has been some- 
what deliberate on my part, for I would not be the cause 
of inflicting more sorrow on one who had already suf- 
fered too much. So I waited till his wife had left us. 
Now that the book is at last before the reading world, 
and my obligation to the one who " fell by the way " is 
met, I may also declare that this is due very largely to 
the inseeing admiration for the Poet, and the constant 
service to myself amid many untoward conditions, of 
my beloved wife, Isabel, to whom I venture to make 
this public reference and thanks therefore. 

I wish space would permit me to thank by name the 
many true friends of Richard Realf, as well as some 
who honor me with their friendship. But I can not do 
more than express gratitude in this general way, except 
as to a few who must be named because of their un- 
selfish devotion to the dead Poet. I desire to express 
my thanks for valuable suggestions in the compilation 
of this volume to Rossiter Johnson, editor, scholar, 
critic; Mr. and Mrs. Cothran, of San Jose, and Col. 
Alexander J. Hawes, of San Francisco, Cal. ; George S. 
Cothman, of Irvington, Ind. ; Frances E. Riggs, of De- 
troit; Mrs. Cramer, and Dr. William Akin, of Chicago; 
Miss May J. Jordan, of Michigan; Mary P. Nimmo (now 
Mrs. Ballantyne), and Rev. Dr. Hanna, of Washington; 
and the Rev. David Schindler, formerly of Pittsburg. 

Richard J. Hinton. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Adieu, The Faint ....... 209 

Advice Gratis 154 

Agony ......... 226 

Annunciation ....... 118 

Apocalypse ........ 37 

Army, The Grand ...... S7 

B., To Miss H. 28 

Battle, In 42 

Birthday Lily, A 148 

Black Man's Answer, A .... 50 

Burns 108 

Byron 113 

Carpenter, To Frank B. . . . . . .24 

Cellar, A Voice from a City .... 183 

Children, The ........ 165 

Comfort 127 

Communion ........ 198 

Condemned, A Voice from the .... 169 

Daguerreotype, On Receipt of a . . . 212 

Deafness, To a Lady Afflicted with ... 15 

Death and Desolation ...... 139 

xi 



PAGE. 

Decoration Day ....... 18 

Denunciation . ....... 123 

Emancipation ....... 51 

England, To Mrs. M., of 26 

Entreaty 143 

Esoteric ......... 167 

Expectancy ........ 144 

Face, A Pictured 150 

Farewell ........ 146 

Father-Love 103 

Fragment, A . . . . . . . . 215 

Fragments 173 

Friend, To A 105 

Friend, To An English ...... 25 

" Gently, Deal" .220 

Gun, The Joy .76 

H., to R.J 32 

Harriet, To . 207 

Hashish 189 

Home, Going ........ 162 

Home, Letters from , 116 

" Hope For Thee, There is " ..... 218 

Human Statue, The 229 

Hyatt, To Thaddeus .... 30 

Impatience ........ 200 

Inauguration, The . . . . . . . 131 

xii 



PAGE. 

Indirection 152 

Inspection ......... 120 

Insufficiency ........ 6 

Introspection .... t ... 43 

IoTriomphe! 73 

Ireland's Misrule ....... 95 

Joshua, Wanted: 47 

Justice or Trade 86 

Kansas 101 

Lawrence, The Defense of ..... 89 

Lessons, Our ........ 83 

Liberty and Charity, Of . . . . . .64 

Life and Love 114 

Life's Dower 129 

Lincoln, Abraham (1863) 13 

Long? How 53 

Lost One, My 221 

Love's Fear ........ 206 

11 Love is Deep, My " 205 

Love's Marvel 17 

Magdalena 176 

Marriage Hymn 147 

Memoriam, In ...... 58 

"Mollie" 192 

Mother Remembrance 178 

Name, A Man's . 163 

Nameless . . . . . . . . 180 



PAGE. 

Nannie's Picture 31 

Need You Not, We 79 

Nobility 171 

Notre Dame, In ...... , 30 

Old Man's Idyl, An 157 

Outcast, Song of the , 185 

" Pass, But Let It" . 213 

Passion 19 

Patience 19 

Peril, In 15 

Picture, A 106 

Pittsburg, Hymn of 142 

Poet's Wealth, The ... ... 223 

Prize Fight, The 159 

Progress, Voice of 125 

Question, The . 81 

Rally! 55 

Reconciliation 172 

Remember, I 197 

" Rest, He Giveth His Beloved" . . . 194 

Rest, The Spirit of 147 

Retrospective and Introspective .... 69 

Salvete Milites! 61 

Scrapbook, In a 24 

Seamstress, Song of the 187 

Sentinel Thoughts 175 



xiv 



PAGE. 

Silence Still 20 

Slain, My 11 

Soul's Despair, A 135 

Spring, Song of 115 

" Subdue You, We Will" 93 

Suicide, Written on the Night of His ... 33 

Summer Night . . . . . . . 210 

Swing, David ....... 22 

Sword Song, My ....... 40 

Symbolisms ........ 3 

Thought, The Palace of . . . . . . 216 

Tones, My Lost ....... 224 

Tress, A Golden ....... 149 

Truth, The ........ 28 

Two .......... in 

" Vates " 32 

Viola's Song ........ 17 

Woman's Breath, A 168 

Writing, To a Lady Chiding Me for Not . . 26 

Year Ago, A . 21 



xv 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Richard Realf in 1878 ... . . . Frontispiece 

The Poet's Mother 34 

Realf in 1858 and 1864 69 

The Poet's Grave 112 



MEMOIR 



MEMOIR 



Richard Realf was born at Framfield, Sussex 
County, England, on the 14th of June, 1834. His sister, 
Mrs. Sarah Whapham, gives as the date the same month 
and day in the year 1832. The poet himself, in his 
autobiographical notes, written for the ' ' Little Classics " 
series, gives the later date, and all correlative testimony 
goes to prove its correctness. The poet's venerable 
father, writing after the death of his gifted son to the 
latter's warm friend, now deceased, the Rev. Alexander 
Clark, D.D., of Pittsburg, declares that his son "was 
a child of wonders for learning." He could " read well 
at three and a half years old" — his mother, Martha, 
being his teacher, for there was no school near. He 
was fond of plaving preacher, of building chapels, and 
of gathering the neighbor children as a congregation. 
For a child he sang well, and was fond of giving out 
hymns. He often said, " It will be funny when I get to 
be a parson and preach! " At chapel Sunday-school he 
was always at the head of his class, as he was also at 
the day-school. Before he was nine years old he wrote 
a few lines on the death of some rabbits. He worked 
in the field at an early age, and then went " to service " 



for a time. As he wished to go to sea, his father went 
with him to the navy yard at Portsmouth. He was 
rejected, however, and then returned to Brighton, where 
an elder daughter, Ellen, was employed in the house- 
hold service of Sir John Cordy Burrows, M.D. The 
father's letter states that Mrs. Parnell Stafford early 
recognized the boy's ability, and aided materially in 
giving him a good education in the Burrow's household. 
After a short period of service he became a secretary 
to Mr. and Mrs. Stafford, and when Mr. Stafford died, 
he made his wife promise to care for the boy Richard. 
Some immature poems were published under the title 
of '* Guesses at the Beautiful," when he was seventeen. 
His father writes that it was after this that Lady Byron 
aided him, stating that she desired to make a " farmer " 
of his son. This, of course, is incorrect, as Real was 
"articled" to a land steward in charge of the Noel 
estate in Derbyshire, a business of a semi-professional 
character, requiring a knowledge of law and land values 
and uses. The boy poet had previously worked in the 
studio of the sculptor Gibson. His eyes, however, failed 
him. Mr. Realf, Sr. , states, as does Mrs. Sarah Whap- 
ham, that Mr. John Burrows, of Brighton, England, was 
at the time of Richard Realf's death, and probably still 
is, in possession of personal papers relative to the poet, 
which his father and himself had gathered. These 
papers have never yet been made public. 

Sir John Cordy Burrows, by whom Richard Realf 
was first employed at Brighton, he being then in his 



twelfth year, was by profession a physician, and had 
been mayor of Brighton. He was made a knight on 
the occasion of some royal visit, as is the custom in 
Great Britain, and was a man of liberal mind and gener- 
ous public spirit. He was always the friend of the 
gifted boy, and when the first grave misfortune befell 
him, stood by and aided effectually, as did also Miss 
de Gardinier, a prominent lady in Brighton, the 
daughter of a retired colonel, who was well known 
then as the personal friend of Louis Philippe. The 
ex-mayor and this generous-hearted lady were the ones 
who helped Realf to his American career, and Dr. 
Loomis, of New York City, secured for him the position 
of assistant superintendent of the Five Points House of 
Industry, then the most notable beneficent institution 
in the metropolis. 

The birthplace of Richard Realf io in the midst of 
one of the loveliest sections of south England, the land 
of lush greenery, flowers, and natural beauty. It is 
the famous Arundel Castle, one of the homes of the 
Howard family, made more famous in later years by 
the labors of the Arundel Society in unearthing, pre- 
paring, and publishing the early movements, deeds, ac- 
counts, etc., of the feudal dukes of Norfolk. 

Realf was a boy of nine years when he wrote his first 
rhymes ; he was then going to a neighboring village school 
through the kindness of Mr. John Whapham. This 
gentleman was a market gardener of considerable means, 
a warm friend of the Realf family, and to his son at a 



/ater date Sarah Realf was married. Richard Realf 
was the fifth child in a family of ten, several of whom 
died during childhood. Two of his brothers were 
soldiers in the British army, both becoming non-com- 
missioned officers, and serving with honor in the Crimea, 
each receiving the Victoria Cross. One brother is still 
living at Buxteed, where the parents also resided at the 
date of the poet's death. The father was a rural police- 
man in 1834, enrolled in the West Sussex Constabulary, 
a position which, in the almost minute social hierarchy 
of English rural life, must be regarded as quite superior 
to that of the agricultural laborer. He is a man of 
character, greatly respected in the neighborhood, and 
evidently endowed with much more than the average 
of bucolic intelligence. Martha, his wife, is also a person 
of superior breeding and ability. She was Richard's 
first teacher. It is reported that after hearing any hymn 
or song twice or thrice sung by his mother, he could, 
when two years old, catch the words and tune and sing 
them perfectly in a sweet baby voice. He never worked 
in the field, as most village and country boys did in the 
rural England of that date. Mr. Whapham paid about 
sixty cents per week for him at the nearest school, requir- 
ing him only to work about his shop and garden on 
Saturdays in return. Richard worked also for the 
village undertaker, but he was a rude drinking and 
swearing man, and the boy could not get along with 
him. After this his father took him to Portsmouth, but 
the commandant refused to enroll him. He had two 

xxiv 



sisters " at service " in Brighton: Ellen, who lived in the 
Burrows' household, and Mary Ann, who was a domestic 
in that of the Staffords. Mr. Stafford was a physician 
and a man of fine attainments and intellectual character, 
sympathetic in spirit, and was at once attracted to the 
handsome village boy, whose very features spoke of the 
effluent soul within. Richard was early transferred to 
the Stafford home, not as a domestic, but an amanuensis. 
His handwriting was always exquisitely formed, clear 
and perfect. The San Francisco reporter, to whom Col. 
Tappan handed his famous death sonnet — his "Swan 
Song," as I like to term it, — declared he had never seen a 
manuscript firmer in strokes or more clear in ensemble, 
even in the portion which had evidently been written 
after the poison took effect. 

Mrs. Stafford belonged to the famous Stewart-Parnell 
family, being an aunt to the great Irish leader. The 
b>oy poet received his education by her bounty and it was 
a.good one. He read well and widely, was grounded in 
Latin, and knew something of French. Of literature, 
classic and English, he had quite a wide range and 
possessed a severe, keen critical taste. Richard Realf, 
in deportment and daily life, was always as if to the 
" manner born," and that of the best school, too. Unlike 
other Englishmen of my generation whom I have known 
as winning culture and securing recognition, though 
born of labor and struggle, he was never too shy or 
overforward, he never felt any disability because of 
origin, or forced personal recognition. He obtained 



it naturally, and if the " blue blood " theory had any 
vitality in fact, those who met him and knew not of 
his family associations, would have readily testified 
of him as a born aristocrat — a gentleman by birth. He 
was one by nature. The bo)r was radical also, in the 
English sense, and of the period. The glamor of '48 
was still in the mental atmosphere. What Charles 
Mackey, Eliza Cook, Ebenezer Elliot, and Gerald 
Massey had sung for Labor and Democracy, was still 
inspiring and uplifting. There was a social fad also in 
patronizing the people, when individual units of that 
somewhat amorphous material showed capacity above 
the average. 

In the " Little Classic " sketch already referred to, 
Realf describes his youthful position and surroundings 
at Brighton. He wrote: 

"At the age of fifteen or thereabouts I began to 
write verses — * lisping in numbers, for the numbers 
came.' When some sixteen years old I hired out as 
1 boy-of-all-work ' to a master mechanic in the neigh- 
borhood, grooming his horse, taking care of his garden, 
and generally discharging whatever menial duties were 
allotted to me. When about seventeen I grew very 
weary of the gross character of my surroundings. I did 
not live at home, but at my ' master's/ who was a 
drunken and brutal man, and with the consent of my 
parents paid a visit to my elder sister, then living in 
the family of a physician at Brighton, Sussex, as a 
domestic servant. The wife of this gentleman, a lady 
of literary taste, manifested a great liking for me, and 
at her invitation I became her amanuensis. Two or 



three weeks after I entered on this new life her husband 
died. Shortly thereafter an eminent physician, who 
had paid special attention to the then new science of 
phrenology, visited Brighton for the purpose of deliver- 
ing a series of lectures on that subject before the 
Brighton Scientific Associaton, of which he was an hon- 
orary member. He was the guest of my benefactress, 
and became interested in me. One day he borrowed 
from me, ostensibly for the purpose of more careful 
reading, a number of my crude ventures in verse. The 
next morning I learned to my astonishment that in his 
lecture of the preceding evening he had read some of 
them in illustrating the organ of ideality. Brighton, 
the fashionable watering-place of England, was then in 
the height of the ' society ' season, and among his 
auditors were many whose names were famous in litera- 
ture and science. A great many people came to see me 
thereupon, among them Lady Byron and her daughter 
Ada. Rogers, the poet, sent for me, being too old and 
infirm to come himself. Mrs. Jameson, Miss Mitford, 
Miss Martineau, Lady Jane Peel, and others, also began 
to pet me. I had shown the possession of some slight 
imitative talent as a molder of images in clay, and 
Gibson, the sculptor, thought there was the making of 
a creative artist in me. Among themselves they de- 
termined to publish a collection of my verses, and this 
was done in 1852, under the title of ' Guesses at the 
Beautiful,' the editor, Charles de la Pryme, Fellow of 
Trinity College, being a nephew of Thackeray. The 
little book was, of course, valuable only for what it 
promised, not at all for what it contained. Lady Byron 
grew greatly interested in me, chiefly, at first, on 
account of the representations made to her concerning 
me by Rev. Frederick W. Robertson, who resided but 



two doors from the home of the lady with whom I lived. 

" The natural tendency of it all was to make me for- 
getful of the honest peasant ancestry from which I 
sprang. So I wrote to Lady Byron, who was then, in 
1853, at her country residence, begging her to get me 
away from these false surroundings. I think that, with 
the exception of my mother, she was the noblest woman 
I ever knew. She at once made arrangements for me to 
go down into Leicestershire, to her nephew, Mr. Noel, 
manager of one of her large estates, with whom I was 
to study the science of agriculture as well as prosecute 
my literary purposes." 

His sister Sarah intimates that Mrs. Stafford was over 
indulgent with her brother, and gave him an undue 
amount of pocket money, as well as jewelry. There is 
no doubt at all that Realf was petted a good deal, and 
that by a social circle which might readily unfit him for 
the struggles of life. He, however, had the good sense 
to perceive himself this incongruity, and it was at his own 
request that he was sent to Derbyshire to learn the 
business of a land steward. He was then well on in 
his nineteenth year. Remaining there for a number of 
months, and apparently with content and reasonable 
success, the village household in Sussex, as well as the 
Byron circle at Brighton, was soon roused to disquietude 
by reports of Realf's disappearance, and of a social 
scandal in the Noel mansion. After some weeks of 
doubt as to his whereabouts, Richard Realf was found 
by his father on the streets of Southampton, in a semi- 
demented state, ragged, bare-footed, destitute, and sing- 



ing ballads for pennies. He was taken home and care- 
fully nursed. It appeared also that before reaching this 
condition in which he was found, he had lived in an ex- 
pensive hotel at Eastbourne, a fashionable watering- 
place, under an assumed name, where he run up quite a 
large account. This was met shortly after by his father. 
Some weeks had passed, during which the young man 
had wandered over England, indulging in acts which cer- 
tainly indicated a disordered mind. What had occurred 
has never been made clear; that there was a woman 
in the case, is certain. She was of the Noel family also, 
and several years the senior of the young poet. His sis- 
ter Sarah states that this lady became pregnant, and an 
elder brother, arriving from the continent, found Realf, 
and beat him unmercifully. Richard himself never 
spoke of it, except as, in his death poem, he sung that— 

He wrought for liberty, till his own wound 
(He had been stabbed), concealed with painful art 

Through wasting years, mastered him, and he 
swooned, 
And sank there where you see him lying now 
With the word " Failure " written on his brow. — 

The story indicated in that other pathetic lyric, "A 
Golden Tress," may also perhaps illustrate the mental 
as well as physical effect of the injury then received. 

For myself I have, after patient delving and ju- 
dicial inquiry, come to the conclusion that the Noel 
episode, in its injurious effects, mental as well as 
physical, (Realf always complained of. periodic trouble 



in his head, and once told me this was due to an injury- 
received by him when he was in his twentieth year), is 
mainly responsible for much of the peculiar conduct 
that marked his after life. In the. ofttimes over- 
wrought imagination, perhaps unduly "peering into 
the immortalities," the recurrent effect of the perma- 
nent injury inflicted by the spirit of brutal caste as much 
as by the passion of virtuous indignation, furnishes 
at least a rational explanation of acts that are so far 
foreign to all other things that are so plain in Realf 's life, 
that they can only be explained by temporary dementia 
and not by the hypothesis of overwrought and melan- 
cholic temperament. Realf was gentle, refined, cour- 
teous, "breathing freely in high altitudes of spirit," 
beloved by all but one who came in contact with him; 
yet his days are marred by strange disappearances, his 
life by weird passion, and his career degraded by acts 
of apparent dishonor. All who knew him as I knew 
him would defend him against such expressions, and 
yet they remain true, because the facts can not be ob- 
literated. With no desire to excuse or to extenuate be- 
cause my friend, in spite of all, is the David of my early 
and later years, admired in life and the more beloved in 
the decades that have followed his untimely departure by 
reason of the sadness I have traced and the suffering 
that, I have learned, clustered so bleak and black about 
him, I have reached the conclusion that Richard Realf 
suffered at times from some form of dementia. 

It was then that his best friends in Brighton, as well 



as the dear homely household in the Sussex village, 
deemed it wise that he should make a place for himself 
in the United States. His sister Mary, not long mar- 
ried, had already sailed over the seas and settled with 
her husband at Cumberland, Maryland. An aunt, Mrs. 
Hynes, had long before emigrated and her family still 
live in one of the Western States. Richard Realf 
landed in New York during April, 1855, and began a new 
and hopeful life at once at the Five Points House of 
Industry. 

One of the strongest impressions made on Realf by 
his youthful residence at Brighton came through his 
contact with a famous evangelical clergyman and orator 
of the established Church — the Rev. Frederick W. Rob- 
ertson — two volumes of whose eloquent sermons were 
published in this country some thirty-five years since. 
It was at his suggestion that Richard Realf became an 
active member of the Brighton Workingmen's Institute. 
He wrote in after days several eloquent and grateful 
tributes to the memory of the English divine, two of 
which appeared in the Christian Radical (Pittsburg) in 
1871, and I find in a letter from the field, written during 
1863, the following: 

"His voice was the rarest to which I have ever lis- 
tened. A blind man, being a stranger to our language, 
would inevitably have loved him hearing him speak; 
and there was no passion that he could not lull, no sor- 
row that he could not soothe, no devil that he could not 
exorcise, nor any child whom he could not charm with the 



benignancy of his voice. How the people of Brighton 
flocked to him! Peers and princesses, the artist and 
the poet with their fine spiritual cravings, Gunnybags, 
the millionaire, with his heart of a metallic hue, the 
fisherman from his boat, the seamstress from her 
needle, the plowman from his fields, and the prisoner 
from his cell, — all, of whatever caste, class, clique, or 
condition, in the light of his sublime manhood stood 
equal unto themselves as unto him and unto God. I 
have within the walls of his church witnessed the finest 
courtesies that I ever saw, the infection of his glorious 
graciousness being upon all his listeners." 

Another influence that affected Realf for good was 
that of a large-hearted American reformer, Mr. Pease, 
the transformer of the once infamous Five Points of 
New York. Realf spent sixteen«months in the House of 
Industry. He was as ready at the toil of teaching and 
serving as we in Kansas and the army found him in 
after days at fighting for liberty and union. During 
this bright period it was my fortune to meet Realf and 
become his friend. As chairman of a lecture committee 
in a young men's temperance and literary club, I in- 
vited him to deliver to us a lecture on poverty and labor, 
which he did with the heartiest interest. His days 
were busy ones. Elsewhere in this memoir I have 
sketched the work of that period. But he early be- 
came animated by that restless and heroic spirit 
which filled the "fifties" with its almost divine fury 
of resistance to slavery. This fresh voice was not 
one of sloth; its clear special tenor was resonant with 



protest against suffering and wrong, pure in its appeals 
for righteousness, and passionate in denunciation of 
oppression. He made friends on every hand, and the 
memories then created still keep his presence as a 
glowing radiance. 

Among the letters sent me, I find one of the Five 
Points period written to his sister Sarah, which contains 
the only reference I can find to the sister and family 
who located in Maryland. The letter is dated at New 
York, July 28th, 1856. The poet writes to "dear 
Sallie": 

" I have been down into Maryland and Virginia, 
amongst my own and your dear friends. Don't I wish 
you could have been with me — that's all. No, it isn't 
all; for then, much as I enjoyed myself, and pleas- 
antly as the time passed, my visit would have 
been a still happier one. They live 400 miles away 
from New York, but with our facilities for traveling it 
really is not much further than from Uskfield to London. 
We do not in America measure distances by miles, but 
by hours. I started at 6 o'clock at night, and had I 
traveled all the way without stopping, should have 
reached Cumberland at noon the next day. Pretty 
rapid — eh, Sallie ? 

11 I heard from Miss de Gardinier the other day. 
I was so pleased that I couldn't help crying, when 
she told me that you were to go and live with Ellen. 
She says Ellen is so good, which, being the case, I 
hope you will follow the advice and instructions of 
that dear sister implicitly and without questioning. 
Do you know, Sallie, that unhesitating obedience is 
the highest altitude unto which any one can attain ? 



Not, of course, obedience to wrong or falsehood — 
but obedience to right and truth. I know that I used 
to think very differently— and so the sorrows and 
the agonies came; had I understood this better, these 
might have been spared. Wouldn't you like to 
come to America? I guess you would. Yes, but I 
don't want you to do so. What would our dear, dear 
father and mother do, if we should all leave them ? I 
should like much — much more than I can say — to see 
you and have you near me, but I would rather never 
see you than consent to your leaving England. I 
haven't much time to talk about this, Sallie, but my 
heart is very full with it, nevertheless. If father and 
mother were ten or fifteen years younger, then I would 
try and bring you all over, but that can't be now; and 

so I want you to stop near them 

4 'You are almost a woman now, dear Sallie, which, 
when I think of, makes me tremble. From my position 
I see so much that is fearful — and in the young too — 
that it makes me doubly anxious for your welfare. You 
will try to be very good, won't you, Sallie dear? 
Father and mother, you know, are growing old now, 
and couldn't bear much sorrow. They shall never have 
to endure any on your account, shall they, Sallie ? " 

Realf's memories of his early home remained vivid 
to the last. I find another letter to sister Sarah, written 
in 1858, at the period of his John Brown relations. It 
can, however, be referred to here: 

" Chatham, Canada West, May 14th, 1858. 

" Good morning, my beloved sister! It is * Fair-day ' 
at Uckfield. Did you think I had forgotten it ? But I 
liaven't. I never forget anything connected, however 



THH POHT'S MOTHfcR 



MRS. MARTHA kKALK 



distantly, with my dear home. I remember all the 
trees: the willow, the oak, the ash, and the poplar. I 
know all the hedgerows, the copses, the little brooks 
and the silent springs, by heart. I recollect the paths 
where the daisies grew; the hillsides where the prim- 
roses and the violets nestled; the meadows where the 
cowslips bloomed. , . How many times, when I 
have been worn and weary, have I flung myself down 
on the coarse prairie grass, to shut the eyes of my 
senses, and open the eyes of my soul upon home. If 
ever you should be such a wanderer as I have been, 
roaming among strangers, cast in perilous places, O 
how your heart will go down upon its knees with a chok- 
ing cry for home! "Why, Sallie, I have sung 'Home, 
sweet Home,' when no eye but God's has seen me, and 
when no ear but His has listened; because if I had not 
sung it my full heart would have broken; and the tears 
would roll down my cheeks, and I would tremble till I 
could hardly sit on my horse 

"Ah me! dear Sallie! It is very long now since I, 
a little child, would wander in and out among the 
crowded cattle, and around the * shows/ and about 
the swarming streets, walking in a sort of dreamy 
wonder, marveling at all I saw. I have passed 
into youth and manhood; gray streaks are among my 
brown hair — my cheeks are thin — there is care upon 
my brow. I criticise now, I weigh defects, I balance 
merits, I doubt, I argue, I arrive at logical conclusions; 
and yet, ever and anon, as to-day, the memory of some 
simple circumstances — some ■ fair,' perhaps, or face, it 
may be — will steal like an old tune across my heart, 
smiting, as with another rod of Moses, the rock that 
was once my soul; and presently the hard granite will 
melt away with fervent heat, revealing the old perennial 



waters of blessed childhood, the everlasting beautiful- 
ness of the time wherein my mother called me * Dickey.' 
As I grew into my * teens,' it wounded my precocity 
and pride, this childish name of 'Dickey.' I thought 
I was too big for it, and that when I put off my ' pina- 
fores ' for 'round frocks/ I also ought to put off the 
childish name I have given for the manlier one of 
'Richard.' I used to murmur in my heart sometimes 
at what I called the obstinacy of mother in adhering to 
the old name; but O, Sallie, what would I not give to- 
day if I could hear her low, sweet voice calling unto me 
as of yore? How I would leap at the blessed sound — 
how I would rush forward to meet her — how I would 
kneel to ask her blessing, and how tenderly and lov- 
ingly I would wait upon her steps as I led her slowly 
home! .... 

Richard." 

This letter was written at the close of the convention 
which pledged its members to death in a wild, heroic 
effort to overthrow slavery. 

In August of 1856, Richard Realf determined on an 
act which shaped and colored all his after life, and 
which in its effects may be said to have wrought its 
graver discolorations also. It is easy to speculate on 
what might have come in thje way of exalting and 
abiding literature if the young poet had moved in 
more sober and ordered ways ; but we do know, how- 
ever, that he nobly strove, often aided efficiently, was 
always the most resonant of voices, and that life became 
broader because of him, even if his own fell prone at 
last among the gruesome shadows by which his footsteps 



were encompassed and sometimes misled. He decided 
to go to Kansas and take a man's part in a man's strug- 
gle — that cf making a State free from slavery. 

An interesting account of his appearance there comes 
to me from an old friend, and as it covers his move- 
ments quite fully, I insert it here: 

11 I shall never forget my first meeting with Richard 
Realf. It was during those stormy and eventful days 
when the question of slavery or freedom for a conti- 
nent was being fought out on the plains of Kansas. 
The Missouri river was blockaded for the free-state 
settlers by the pro-slavery population along its banks. 
I had gathered a large part of young men to march 
overland through Iowa, to aid the free-state cause by 
votes, and if need be, with strong arms. 

" It was in September, 1856, and our party had reached 
Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, by rail, and from thence were mak- 
ing ready for their long march of over 600 miles. 
Senator Harlan and Gov. Grimes came and gave us 
addresses of welcome, and words of cheer. Teams had 
been procured to carry the baggage of the men, and a 
supply of arms and ammunition to reenforce the little 
Spartan band which held the decisive point in the 
struggle for free soil. The train was about to start, 
when a young man, breathless, and with face flushed 
with heat, came running from the cars. He inquired 
for me, and presented a very kind letter from Mr. 
Pease, of the House of Industry, in New York, where 
the bearer had been a teacher. The indorsement was all 
that could be desired, but Realf hardly needed it. Sus- 
picious as all were of spies and traitors in our camp, his 
soulful earnestness and noble devotion would have won 
all hearts to him. His splendid face was radiant with a 



grand enthusiasm, and he was made welcome. He 
joined in the march, and walked with his comrades. 
He was in my own mess, and his especial pet was young 
Lagrange, of Wisconsin, since a famous soldier and 
public man, possessing a soul of the same chivalrous 
type, but more fortunately balanced in intellect. Realf 
was always ready to do his share of every disagreeable 
job. If the wagons stuck in the mud, or fuel was to be 
gathered for the camp, or a sick comrade needed care, 
he was always among the first to offer his help. 

" He was brimful of a certain fiery energy, which 
seemed never to flag for a moment. He never showed 
nervousness or vexation. He was singularly tender 
and affectionate. At night, before we lay down, he 
always embraced Lagrange and myself. Poetry bub- 
bled up from his heart like a perennial spring, as we lay 
looking up into the heavens of a clear night. He im- 
provised, or recalled choice stanzas of his own, or of 
other poets 

11 Of Realf in Kansas I know little, as I never resided 
there. About a year following, on a visit to the terri- 
tory, I found him still as exuberant in life and poetic 
fire as ever. I spent a night with a party on Mt. Oread, 
near Lawrence, in one of the forts erected to defend 
Lawrence from Sheriff Jones' army of Missourians. 
Realf was of the party, also Cook and Kagi, who died 
with John Brown at Harper's Ferry. Hinton also. 
Later the same year I met him in New York city, and 
visited the Five Points House of Industry with him. 
Every one there seemed to love him. 

" Years passed and I heard from him only occasionally 
during and after the war. I met him again in 1874, 
while he was on the Pittsburg Commercial. Though time 
and trouble had left their marks upon him, there was 

xxxviii 



much to recall my old friend and comrade. There was 
the same undying love of liberty, and warm ready sym- 
pathy for the cause of the poor. He told me of his 
troubles, and I knew at times that he tried to drown 
sorrow in drink. He was, however, steady at his work. 
He had many mouths to feed, and all his modest earn- 
ings were spent for others. 

" In the winter of 1876, visiting Pittsburg, I found him 
in the Temperance work, heart and soul. Francis Mur- 
phy had made thirty thousand converts to temperance,, 
and Realf was one of the brightest. He spoke with 
great power at the monster gatherings and continued 
steadfast after the meetings closed. He told me then 
that he felt the stirrings of a new spiritual life, and that 
he would enter the field as a lecturer. His life seemed 
only just fairly begun, I heard of his lectures in Ohio 
and of his visit to the Pacific Coast. The news of his 
death came to me in his last poem, sent by our mutual 
friend, Gen. Lagrange. Of him it might be truly said 
as of one before: - His sins which are many are for- 
given him, for he loved much.' " 

Realf arrived in Kansas in the middle of October, 
1856. S. C. Pomeroy, James Redpath, S. F. Tap- 
pan, Preston B. Plumb, Edward Daniels of Wisconsin, 
Oscar Lagrange, afterward a Union general, the Rev. 
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Thaddeus Hyatt, and, 
if I recollect aright, Horace White also, were among 
the notable members of the northern emigrant "train." 
He lived at Lawrence until he returned east with Thad- 
deus Hyatt in the early days of January, 1857, Coming 
back in April of the same year, he remained in the 
territory until he left to join John Brown in Iowa, early 



in the following August. He never went back. Dur- 
ing these months his life was one of ceaseless agita- 
tion and literary activity. He wrote while in Kansas 
at least twenty-five of his more notable lyrics, and to 
his three months' residence in the east is due nearly or 
quite a score of sonnets and love-lyrics of the purest 
tone and rhythmic melody. 

It is not necessary to follow the months of waiting 
and drilling at Springdale, Iowa, where John Brown 
with his son Owen, nine Kansas men, and one man of 
color, prepared themselves for that strange overture to 
the Titanic struggle against chattel slavery that their 
captain inaugurated at Harper's Ferry, Va., October 
17, 1859. It would take volumes to give the interesting 
details of the quaint and simple life in the Iowa Quaker 
settlement. The men drilled and read books of tactics 
and war. They held lyceum and had debates that 
made them famous on that lonely country-side. Every- 
body knew they were preparing to fight slavery, every 
one thought it was to be in Kansas and Missouri, and 
the idea that the free-state war was to be carried into 
the Virginian Dahomey was not known until later in 
1859. The brothers, Edwin and Barclay Coppoc, left 
Springdale to join John Brown in Maryland. As Rich- 
ard Realf's name has been at times in hasty and 
ignorant criticism attached to an anonymous letter 
sent in the fall of 1859, from Cincinnati, to Floyd, 
Secretary of War, declaring that John Brown de- 
signed to attack Harper's Ferry, the matter of actual 

xl 



authorship may as well be cleared up here. Until 
within the past two years I have always charged the 
writing of the Floyd letter to a Mr. Edmund Babb, of 
Cincinnati. In this charge I have been mistaken, and 
have done Mr. Babb such injury as the accusation might 
bring, for which I hereby express my profound regret. 
A brother of the two Coppocs, who served with Captain 
Brown, published in an Iowa periodical {The Midland 
Monthly), October, 1895, his ungrounded suspicion that 
the warning letter was written by Realf. The state- 
ment was absurd on its face, however, but it had the 
good effect of bringing out the truth as to by whom and 
from what motives the letter was written. The former 
lieutenant governor of Iowa, Hon. B. F. Gue, told in 
the same periodical how he and his brother, David J. 
Gue, now of New York city, with a cousin, A. L. Smith, 
of Buffalo, were visiting Moses Sarney, the Quaker 
friend at whose house John Brown stayed in Spring- 
field. This man of peace told the three persons named 
of the intention to invade Virginia, and expressed at 
the same time his conviction of absolute failure, bring- 
ing death to all concerned. The young men felt the 
same way, and in that spirit, hoping to prevent what 
they considered madness, they wrote two letters un- 
signed, one being mailed at Cincinnati, and the other at 
Philadelphia. Both were mailed at " Big Rock," Iowa, 
enclosed in envelopes addressed to the postmasters of the 
cities named. The Cincinnati letter was received. The 
writer of the letter was David J. Gue, now an artist and 

xli 



portrait painter in New York city. After the letter was 
sent, the young men waited. Then came the blow at 
Harper's Ferry, and in common with all anti-slavery 
sympathizers they too rose to the measure of the issues 
created. Their well-meant effort was abortive, and on 
the whole they were not displeased that it should so be. 

I shall not recite the story of John Brown, or of the 
Chatham Convention. It belongs to another volume, 
and would take up too much space in this memoir. 
Realf was one of the leading spirits. He sustained 
with fiery eloquence his captain's extreme views. Of 
John Brown's personal influence he once said : " He 
possessed that strange power which enables one man to 
impress many with his views, and he so psychologized 
his associates, that, seeing only through his medium of 
vision, they consequently were unable to controvert his 
theories; therefore the movement went blindly on, For 
myself, too, it is certain that had I not been to New 
York, where, out of reach of his great mesmeric power, 
I could in some sort master the questions involved, I 
should have been with the enterprise to the bitter end. 
I should, indeed, have had no other choice. Had John 
Brown sent a man on an errand to Hades he must have 
started hither, for Brown was one of God's own com- 
manders." 

Richard Realf was selected for secretary of state in 
the skeleton form of provisional constitution and gov- 
ernment under which John Brown expected to control 
within slave territory, the slaves he was to make free 

xlii 



by fighting for and with them. When the Chatham Con- 
vention adjourned, the Browns, the father and the son 
Owen, Kagi, Cook, and Realf, with others, went to 
Cleveland, Ohio. It was there decided that the revolu- 
tionists separate for a brief period, and Realf determined, 
with Captain Brown's approval, to go first to New York, 
and thence to England, not only to see his people, but 
with voice and pen to endeavor to obtain means to aid 
the enterprise. To this end he wrote letters to George L. 
Stearns and others, who were sympathetic with Captain 
Brown's aims, though not knowing then his plan and 
place of attack. There is no word to be found during 
the thirty-seven years of my constant research into the 
movements of John Brown and his men, the result of 
which has been embodied in another volume of mine, 
that warrants such a statement as was made by a writer 
in the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, at the time of 
Realf 's death, to the effect that his alleged " betrayal" 
of Captain Brown began at Cleveland, from where 
he was ordered to look after Hugh Forbes (as the news- 
paper critic states), an English drill-master, who was, 
owing to a disagreement, engaged in denouncing John 
Brown's purpose to the leading Republican politicians. 
Realf went to England with John Brown's consent. J. 
H. Kagi, who was named as secretary of war, and was 
slain during the fighting of October, 1859, wrote to me 
some time in June asking for news of Realf, and in that 
letter said they had had no word from him direct since he 
left to go to England with the captain's consent. Realf 

xliii 






said the change of his views, not as to the wrong and 
unrighteousness of slavery itself, but as to the ■ ' rightful- 
ness" of the proposed method of assault, began with 
his reading for the first time Wayland's " Limitations of 
the Human Will." And this is probably the entire 
truth, for there is abundant evidence to show that he 
worked arduously, though with no great success, to 
earn money lecturing while in England; that he never 
denied personal hostility or objection to the existence 
of slavery in England, France, or in the South. Col. 
Thomas P. Ochiltree, the well-known Texan and New 
Yorker, when he was a youth himself, knew Realf dur- 
ing the summer and fall of 1859. He greatly admired 
the brilliant northerner, who openly spoke of his parti- 
cipation in the Kansas Free State strife and against the 
South. Col. Ochiltree has cold the writer of many such 
incidents. Judge Paschall, by whose advice and action 
Realf was saved from mob violence, told me in Wash- 
ington that the poet never denied his anti-slavery feel- 
ings. 

Realf was in England and the Channel Islands from 
late in June till early in September. He then visited Paris 
and went thence to Havre, where he procured a cheap 
passage to the United States on a cotton ship bound for 
New Orleans. In this even he had apparently no other 
purpose than to get a chance to see slavery in its own 
lair, and work his way back to Kansas. He obtained 
reportorial work on The Bee, but in some way fell under 
the influence of Catholic friends. He went to Mobile 

xliv 



for study, and on the 3d of October was admitted to the 
Jesuit College at Spring Hill, where he was baptized as 
"John Richard." Among my memoranda I find the 
following notes, which were written a short time since 
by one who was with Realf at the college, and is now, or 
was at the time of writing, a prominent church dignitary. 
The note that accompanied these has been lost and I do 
not recall the name. But here is the statement. There 
are some errors in date as, for example, Realf was in 
England in July, 1859. 

11 About the first of July, 1859, Richard Realf came on 
a visit to the Jesuit fathers. He was at the college for 
about three months, was instructed and baptized, and, as 
my memory serves me, made his profession of faith, and 
was received into the church by Father Gaureist, then 
rector of the college, in the presence of the students 
assembled in the chapel for the customary daily mass. 
He left for New Orleans with the college boys on the 
Morgan steamship early in October. His verses were 
published in the New Orleans Catholic Standard, then 
edited by a Col. Denis." 

When James Redpath began, with my aid as collabo- 
rator, "The Public Life of John Brown," Realf was 
believed by us to have died at sea. When later, as the 
last proofs were being read, Realf was arrested at 
Tyler, and garbled statements were wired north, Red- 
path wrote his preface thereon, and denounced Richard 
Realf as a " traitor." I combated that view, but it was 
of no use. Years after (1877) Redpath wrote to a lady 
in Ohio (at Xenia, I believe), replying to an inquirv. 

xlv 



and stating that his attack on Realf was unjust. He 
gave the explanation I have just made. Redpath's 
language in the book was as follows: 

"The latest telegraphic news makes one correction 
necessary. I have spoken of Richard Realf as dead, I 
thought that he died a natural death on the ocean. It 
appears that he still lives in the body; but dead to 
honor, the voice of conscience, and the cries of the poor. 
He has chosen the part of Judas and promises to play 
it well." 

He then adds to Mrs. Ann Good's inquiry (the corre- 
spondence and name were all published in an Ohio paper 
from which I copy): 

"You ask me why I used this language. Just as the 
preface was ready for the press, the news came that one 
of John Brown's men had been arrested in Alabama or 
Texas — or one of the Gulf States; that he had confessed 
his connection with the old hero, and had offered to 
betray all the secrets of the movement if he should be 
brought before the Congressional Committee; that his 
proposal had been accepted and that he was then on 
his way to Washington under military or semi-military 
escort. We all believed that Col. Realf had become a 
traitor. This belief caused me to write that assault on 
him. The book was printed before he gave his evi- 
dence. 

" Examined by Mr. Jefferson Davis and Mr. Mason, of 
Virginia, while it is true that he told his story at great 
length, it is equally true that he did not betray any 
secrets that injured any one. I never read his evidence 
in full until after I wrote the preceding paragraph. I 
have just finished it, and write, therefore, with all the 

xlvi 






facts fresh in my mind. But as long ago as 1872 I 
publicly retracted and apologized for the unjust charge 
that I had made against Col. Realf. You will find it in 
the edition of my book, published by Kinney Brothers 
at Sandusky, Ohio. . . . 

" If a cloud has been cast across the path of Col. Realf 
by the error that I made years ago, and that I have not 
been fully able to atone for, I am not only willing, but 
anxious, that his friends should make any use that they 
see fit of this explicit retraction and apology." . . . 

The evidence Realf gave had no political importance. 
Its value is purely historical, linking, as it did, the 
struggle in Kansas with the attack on Harper's Ferry, 
and showing how both came to be. 

When Realf reached Cleveland, Ohio, after the U. S. 
Senate Committee had discharged him, he had some 
$600 in his possession, received as witness fees and 
mileage. In that city he met Barclay Coppoc and 
Osborne P. Anderson, two of those who escaped from 
the Virginia melee. He immediately divided his money 
by one half, thus enabling both to reach their homes 
and safety. 

In quite a remarkable communication addressed to tne 
editor (Mrs. H . F. M. Brown) of a Cleveland weekly of the 
period, after analyzing the conflicting conditions which 
went, in his judgment, to make up modern reform move- 
ments, he writes: 

"I am afraid I have been somewhat indecorously 
amused at the various speculations of people in regard 
to my former connection with John Brown. One news- 

xlvii 



paper (the Philadelphia Ledger) writes me down in a long 
editorial as ' quick, ardent, enthusiastic, able, earnest, 
truthful, sincere, utterly fearless of consequences, and 
with that sort of boundless faith in the goodness of 
others which inspires confidence and makes others good 
to him.' The Washington States and Union scolds me 
like a virago for having, it claims, made the government 
preserve my life from assassination, and transport me 
from Texas to the North, that I might in my testimony 
exculpate the Republican party from the Democratic 
charge of complicity with John Brown's raid. Redpath, 
the author of the old hero's biography, conceived an 
impression that I had sold myself to the South, and so 
attached an opprobrious epithet to my name. A Demo- 
cratic organ in this city is mightily exercised because I 
have given a little money to a 'traitor' who escaped 
from Harper's Ferry; and men of both parties are 
greatly puzzled to know how it is that I can condemn 
Brown's insurrection, and yet vindicate his personal 
character, and make donations to those who were en- 
gaged with him in his enterprise. And thus I answer 
them all: O! Brother, O! Friend, — do not perplex your- 
self with perpetual prying into that which will not avail 
you. Is it not enough that you can not understand me, 
without unnecessarily vexing yourself with futile effort ? 
Perhaps you are above me, perhaps below, or it may 
chance that, though afar off, we are equal. If I choose 
to balk your criticism and baffle your analysis, what is 
that to you? Look you, friend, I appeal from your 
customs, your rules, your measurements. I do not 
stand in awe of you. I will not seek to conciliate you. 
I will not pay you hypocritical attentions. I do not de- 
sire your suffrage. If I am noble, it will presently 
manifest itself; if I am base, I shall not always be able 

xlviii 



to conceal it. If it can show itself in no other way, it 
will ooze out at my finger ends. This world is God's 
great whispering gallery. Speak we never so low, it 
roars like the thunder of an avalanche. Act we never 
so secretly, it blazes along the dark with insufferable 
blinding distinctness like lightning. Hide we away in 
places never so silent and far removed, the fiery finger 
will point us out, the inflexible pursuing voice will trans- 
fix us with the discerning words, ' Thou art the man.' 
It is most egregious folly to attempt to play hide and 
seek with our Maker. Wherefore, if I can neither lift 
an arm, nor raise a foot, nor utter the slightest word 
under my breath, without having it thrill upward and 
downward to the shining pillars of heaven and the 
ghastly pits of hell — if I am thus encompassed with un- 
speakable responsibilities and thus surrounded with 
unutterable grandeurs which flash in upon me through 
all the avenues of my being — if I have entered into a 
spiritual contract with God, to the performance of which 
I am pledged by all sweetness of peace and all sublimity 
of repose, and the failure of my duty wherein will in- 
volve me in consequences more perilous than hell — what 
is it to me if you can not gauge me with your personal 
standards? Why will you leave your politics, your 
merchandise, your money-making, only that you may 
grow vexed and petulant? If you are true, I am glad 
of it, for it is so much the better for you. But go your 
way, and leave me to go mine. If I wrong you, I am a 
fool; if you injure me, you are not the less so, for you 
thereby constitute yourself my abject debtor, and 
possess me with a lien upon your soul. Let us, there- 
fore, be careful how we judge each other " 

From the early part of February to the last of August, 
i860, Realf is known to have been in Ohio. After Ieav- 

xlix 



ing Cleveland, he went to Columbus, making the ac- 
quaintance there, among others, of William D. Howells 
and John J. Piatt, who were both engaged on the lead- 
ing Republican paper — the State Journal. He did some 
work for the paper while in the city. But he did not 
succeed in obtaining remunerative employment, and 
with the remains of the money paid him as witness fees 
and mileage, he started probably for Cincinnati, but, 
feeling worn with the mental strain he had undergone, 
went to the Shaker settlement, at Union Village, War- 
ren Co., Ohio, to obtain rest and recuperation. A lady 
who afterward resided in Xenia, and nursed him 
through a severe sickness, writes of his stay in the 
village as follows: 

" He came to a village in Warren County, Ohio, in 
which I was living at the time. He wanted a comfort- 
able place to rest, as he said he had just come out of the 
John Brown trouble with his life. So we took him into 
our house. In a few weeks he was taken very ill, and 
it fell to my lot to take care of him, which I gladly did, 
as he was so young and had not a relative in this country. 
He continued very ill for many weeks, and it was three 
months before he fully recovered. When convalescing, 
he took great pride in giving me a history of his life, 
which was, of course, very interesting to me. . . . 
Then he was engaged by the Believers to lecture or 
preach to them once a week for six months. It took 
him one week to prepare himself for the first of the 
course. The people advertised that such lectures would 
be delivered free to the public, and the hall was well 
filled. It was not long, however, before the fame of his 

1 



eloquence extended over the region. The press lauded 
him in high tones, and he continued to draw such crowds 
that hundreds could not gain admittance to the hall. 
As he proceeded with his course he grew more and more 
eloquent, until the religious body he spoke for declared 
he was inspired by the Holy Spirit. ... I never 
missed one lecture during the six months. It was gen- 
erally held as a delight to hear him, and, indeed, his 
whole chain of thought was full of purity, logic, pathos 
and eloquence." . 

The secretary of the Believers community at Union 
Village, whose adherents are generally called Shakers, 
in reply to a communication from me, writes briefly: 

"Richard Realf came to Union Village in March, i860. 
He united and became a member of the society on the 
22d day of April following. We have no record of the 
precise time he left the community, but we think he 
tarried with us about five months. A portion of the 
time he sustained the position of a public speaker, 
evincing much ability and talent, and by his oratory he 
attracted large audiences. His conduct while at Union 
was altogether unexceptionable." 

When he left the community there was something like 
a religious revival in the air. The subjects of his dis- 
courses were such as : " The Hollowness of the World 
Life," "The Nobility of Sacrifice," "Purity in Life," and 
similar themes. The local papers referred to them as 
masterpieces of ethical philosophy and religious zeal. 
He grew restless, however; the beginnings of rebellion 
were in the winds; his own active nature craved broader 
life, and he was called to the lecture-field by the fame 

li 



of his " Shaker " speeches. Two lectures were delivered 
at Dayton, with great success and considerable pecuni- 
ary reward. Other lectures were delivered by him in 
Ohio cities and towns on poetry and anti-slavery topics. 
It was at this period that his lecturing took hin to 
Mac-a-Cheek, the home of Donn Piatt, then just returned 
from a not over-creditable diplomatic career in Paris. 
Realf was not in poverty at the time, but, on the con- 
trary, must have been quite forehanded. I should not 
have referred to this meeting but for the fact that, sev- 
eral years after my friend's death, Donn Piatt gathered 
a handful of mire and flung it needlessly at his memory, 
by publication in a Chicago literary weekly of a story 
that the poet, a vagabond in appearance, shoeless and 
ragged, came to his residence with a note from some one 
known to him. Piatt stated that he entertained the wan- 
dering singer, loaned him $600, and sent him on his way 
rejoicing, and had never heard directly from him since. 
There are several bits of internal evidence that tend to a 
natural disproval of this queer story. In the first place, 
no one who knew Donn Piatt, as I did for several years 
at a later period, would credit him with a specially gener- 
ous disposition, or pick him out as a man likely to loan 
$600 to a shoeless, ragged man, even if he were a gifted 
poet and orator. Secondly, Piatt himself was well known 
to be in pecuniary difficulties at that time. And thirdly, 
as already shown, Richard Realf was by no means an 
impecunious wanderer at the date Piatt gave — August, 
i860. Realf's lectures at Dayton, Ohio, were delivered 

Hi 



that month, and they netted him over $100 each. Be- 
sides he had other funds, including the amount received 
from the Believers. He lectured in Mac-a-Cheek 
also at that date, and would hardly have done so had 
he been in the state of vagabondage the romancing 
journalist afterward described. I find among Realf's 
papers of that period, and subsequently, mention several 
times of his having lent Donn Piatt $600, which was 
never returned. He so informed Captain Rowland, with 
whom he enlisted, among others. Piatt was much abler 
at borrowing than was Realf , an ' the possibilities are 
all in favor of the latter. 

After the Mac-a-cheek incident, however, from about 
September, i860, until about July, 1862, Realf dis- 
appeared from the public view. With all the efforts 
I have made it has been impossible to trace, him for a 
single day during the twenty months intervening. He 
himself has said that a visit to England occurred; but 
his sister, Mrs. Whapham, declares that none of his 
family or their acquaintances know of such a visit. 
Only one poem of that period has reached me, and it is 
the one entitled " Apocalypse," and relates to the killing 
of Private Ladd of the Sixth Massachusetts in the 
streets of Baltimore, April 19th, 1861. Perhaps the 
Mac-a-cheek incident, whether it was borrowing or 
lending, may have been the immediate cause of this 
disappearance. At any rate, Realf's personality passed 
into the void, so far as I have been able to learn. The 
next appearance is at the beginning of his military life 

liii 



in Chicago. Realf's enlistment is thus described by a 
former recruiting officer, Captain Charles Rowland, 
in a letter dated December 10, 1878: 

" In the summer of 1862 I was seated in my recruiting 
office, in Chicago, when one morning there walked in a 
bright, trim-built, intelligent-looking little gentleman, 
and, saluting me with a pleasant ' good morning,' 
asked, ' You are raising recruits for the army, I sup- 
pose?' Answering in the affirmative, I asked him to 
take a seat. Upon doing so he commenced a conversa- 
tion on general topics, the war, slavery, etc., which 
lasted probably half an hour. Ere he departed I asked 
him if he had any notion of entering my company, and 
said, if so, it would afford me exceeding pleasure to 
swear him in. He stated that not at that time could he 
answer my question, but would call again in a day or 
two. On the ensuing day he came again, and after 
another chat of, perhaps, an hour, he said: 

1 ' ' Captain, I am really much pleased with you, and am 
ready to be sworn in as a soldier.' 

" Accordingly I administered the necessary oath. Of 
course, he had told me his name — a native of England. 
His age or vocation I do not remember. [He was then 
in his 29th year.] ." 

Captain Rowland mentions the disposal of some books 
and clothing, for which Realf would have no use as a 
soldier. The captain took his recruit to board with 
him, as they would be in the city for some weeks. As 
always, Realf's charming personality held those with 
whom he met. Captain Rowland writes: " I appeared to 
lift him out of sadness at times, for he often ran from 

liv 



summer heat to zero in a few minutes. " His poetic genius 
soon showed itself to his interested friend, and won, he 
writes, "my sympathy, and at last, I might say, my 
affection." He spoke of his early life in Brighton and 
Kansas, and soon confided to the captain his connection 
with John Brown, his life in Texas, arrest and removal 
to Washington, etc. Captain Rowland writes: 

" I really fancy that Realf believed in the feasibility of 
the overthrow of slave government by the nucleus of 
men that John Brown fought with at Harper's Ferry. 
His imagination was, I was about to say, generally the 
master of his reason. His wish to gain an object in- 
duced him to believe it could readily be achieved; not 
studying about the necessary means to gain an end, he 
was ever liable to disappointment. But he possessed a 
gentle, child-like, confiding nature. There was a great 
deal of womanly sensibility mingled in his character. 
He was governed by quick impulses and too frequently 
was he deceived." 

The two gentlemen were constant companions for 
several weeks, and the captain testifies that intimacy 
increased confidence on his part. Realf desired, how- 
ever, to go to camp, and transportation was furnished 
him to Camp Butler, Springfield, 111. Correspondence 
was maintained between the two friends. Realf had an 
opportunity of promotion at an early day, and Captain 
Rowland released him to enable his securing a warrant 
position in the 88th Illinois. He was made sergeant- 
major of the regiment, and thus placed in line for the 
adjutant's commission, which came a year later. The 

lv 



regiment was soon ordered south, and at once saw- 
active service in the famous Perryville and Stone River 
campaigns, 

That Realf's military career was one of honor, cour- 
age, ability, and personal uprightness, can not be ques- 
tioned. With his regiment, the 88th Illinois Volunteer 
Infantry, he served in the Fourth Army Corps through- 
out the war, under brigade and division commanders 
Stanley, Schofield, Sill, Lytle, Wood, and Sheridan, with 
Generals Rosecrans, Thomas, Grant, and Sherman, par- 
ticipating in all the grand series of military operations, 
from the march to and battles of Perryville and Mur- 
freesboro or Stone River, the capture of Nashville, the 
massive campaign of 1863, which resulted in the occu- 
pation of Chattanooga, the great conflict on the Chica- 
mauga field, the superb victory at Lookout Mountain 
and Mission Ridge, the severe winter campaign under 
Hooker for the relief of Knoxville, all the marching and 
fighting southward to Kingston, Georgia, preparatory to 
the great Atlanta campaign under Sherman, with 
the arduous work and fighting therein, until the 
capture of Atlanta brought him back to Chatta- 
nooga, temporarily invalided with bilious fever. He 
was actively employed thereafter at Chattanooga and 
Nashville, participating in the final close at the 
battle of Franklin, under Schofield, Stanley, and Wood, 
of the Confederate attack under Hood upon General 
George H. Thomas and his forces in the central 
south; at Nashville, Tenn., through the larger part of 

lvi 



1864 and 1865, until his departure north as a citizen, 
June 21st. In the latter year he served upon the staff 
of Brigadier-General John F. Miller, who afterward 
befriended him so warmly in California, and acted, by 
the poet's dying request, as his executor. 

Occasionally, some one has written of the poet as 
a "soldier of fortune," or a "military adventurer." 
These caviling designations are absolutely inaccurate. 
Realf was a conscientious and self-convinced citizen of 
the United States, and therefore, when defense of the 
assailed Union led in his view directly toward the free- 
dom from chattel slavery which he held to be essential 
to its safety, he was an honest and devoted soldier of 
its flag and unity. He was personally brave unto rash- 
ness, and won the high honor, for a subaltern, of 
being twice named in general corps and division orders 
for personal gallantry, once at Mission Ridge, where 
he carried the regimental colors forward under aheavy 
fire, the color-bearer having been shot down, thus rally- 
ing the line for a successful advance against rifle pits 
in front ; and again at Franklin, where the Eighty- 
eighth Illinois bore the brunt of a great resistance. In 
Eddy's "Patriotism of Illinois " (page 210) the author 
says that the Eighty-eighth "bore a splendid part 
in the battles about Nashville, fighting Forest at 
Spring Hill, and on the thirtieth of October, 1864, 
reaching Franklin, where the Illinois regiment led 
in a remarkable charge." Col. Smith, Major Holden, 
and Adjutant Realf, one of the bravest of the brave 

lvii 



(writes Mr. Eddy), "were on horseback, not hav- 
ing had time to dismount, and so entirely exposed to 
the enemy's fire." He continues: "it was a desperate 
hand to hand fight, and both Generals Stanley and 
Wood, corps and division commanders, publicly and in 
person thanked the regiment and its field and staff officers 
by name, for the repulse of the rebel column, the safety 
of the Union army, and the victory of the day" (vol. 2, 
pp. 345-7). General Alexander McCook, corps command- 
er, speaks of the Eighty-eighth as follows: "This fire, 
not in any way diminishing, I ordered the colors forward 
on the works, which a moment afterward were carried, 
and the stars and stripes waved triumphantly on Mis- 
sion Ridge." The regimental adjutant was slain in this 
charge, and the poet sergeant-major won the vacant bar 
by carrying forward the flag. 

In one of the many war letters placed at my disposal, 
Realf writes to a lady correspondent who wondered at 
him, an Englishman, being in the American army: "I 
hold that he alone is an American who is true to the 
idea of the American Republic. There are many alien 
natures born on these shores; many American hearts 
that drew breath beyond the seas. And I think that 
by and by among the many lessons we shall have 
to learn will be that our estimates of the basis of con- 
sanguinity, as well as nationality, are a good deal 
wide of the mark." In another letter he wrote that, 
born in the faith of Cromwell, and nurtured on the 
genius of John Milton, how could he be other than a 

lviii 



republican, and therefore a lover and defender of the 
Union assailed by slavery and secession. 

All the Kansas comrades of the poet entered the 
Union army, or in a few cases, being physically unable 
so to do, served in the recruiting or other useful ser- 
vice. Several of them, like Realf, and this writer, were 
of English or European birth, but none the less were 
they most devoted Americans. And none of them are 
entitled to the flippant designation of " soldiers of for- 
tune." The war letters of Richard Realf, as well as 
the annals of his modest but efficient service, prove 
how alive was his patriotism. Apart from their exqui- 
site literary quality, these letters would prove in print 
an inspiration to citizenship. The poet's recognition of 
President Lincoln's policy and statesmanship, with his 
trenchant perception of the failure of others, as well as 
his scorn of those who plotted and hindered at home, 
are among the more notable expressions of soldier feel- 
ing. Elsewhere I have referred to the literary value of 
these letters, but I am by no means sure their civic sig- 
nificance and importance are not much greater. One of 
their delightful features is constant tribute to the char- 
acter of his soldier comrades. In front of Atlanta, on 
the eighth of September, 1864, he wrote to his Michigan 
correspondent, Miss Jordan: 

" Since I last wrote, what a grand consummation has 
been put to this Atlanta campaign! What an arduous 
time we had, filled with quick marches, rapid maneu- 
vers, swift feints, and swifter strokes of purposes; and 

lix 



how completely, intellectually considered, the inferiors 
of Sherman, were Johnston and Hood. Balked and 
baffled, blinded and misled, Hood was ever as an auto- 
maton in our great leader's hands. How glad I am it 
is at last over, and that our poor, tired boys will have 
an opportunity for rest and repose before the tug of 
war again comes. How brave they have been — how full 
of uncomplaining heroism and fortitude, none but they 
who have marched, fought, and suffered with them, can 
tell. We are apt to look back regretfully upon the olden 
times of chivalry, as though with the departure of those 
days the knightly spirit went out; but I can bear testi- 
mony to the fact that under the rough exterior of our 
Union braves there beat as loyal and kingly hearts as 
ever throbbed in Abelard or other knight, sans peur et 
sans reproche." 

In an earlier letter to the same correspondent, he 
writes of his comrades: 

4 ' That we degenerate in politeness of speech and man- 
ner, that we grow somewhat abrupt and rude, is quite 
true; indeed, I do not see how this could well be other- 
wise, but these matters are by no means essentials, and 
do not concern the purity of the soul. Standing on 
these battle-heights, front to front with the dark mys- 
teries of life and death, it is no marvel that we account 
of little value the slight veneering of conventional pro- 
prieties. But I repeat my heart's conviction when I say 
that, in all the attributes which form the basis of true 
manhood, courage, not of the flesh but of the soul — en- 
durance, patience, fealty to conception of truth, and 
sometimes pity and tenderness softer than a woman's — 
the men in the armies of the Union will compare favor- 
ably with any selection of people that can be made." 

lx 



The temptation is great to continue and amplify these 
extracts, but sufficient have been given to illustrate the 
spirit in which Richard Realf performed his duty as an 
armed American citizen. It was this devotion and 
courage tbat won for him the unanimous encomiums of 
his associates and superiors. 

The most striking recognition is given in a letter to 
me. Under date of San Francisco, March 26, 1879, 
Gen. Miller writes of Realf's services on his staff at 
Nashville, of which city he was military commander, 
in part, as follows: 

"Realf was aid on my staff at Nashville several 
months. He was very intelligent in the discharge of 
his duty, very punctual, and faithful, always on duty, 
earnest, industrious, sober, and discreet. I never heard 
a word of complaint concerning him in any respect 
while he served with me, and I certainly regarded him 
as an officer of rare attainments, faithful, efficient, and 
intelligent in the discharge of his duty. His private 
character during that time, so far as I knew, was above 
reproach. My command at Nashville was that known 
as military commander of a city, and it involved what 
might be termed civic military rule. The duties were 
very arduous, thousands of people came to my head- 
quarters upon every conceivable errand and for almost 
every purpose, and these I had to deal with as well as 
to attend to my military duties as commander of troops. 
The civil authorities looked to the military for aid and 
support, and hence my duties brought me in contact 
with all officers of the civil government, I had a large 
staff, and among the officers was Realf, whose duty was 
to receive the visitors to headquarters in an anteroom, 

lxi 



ascertain their names and the nature of their business 
with the commander, give assistance to them in formu- 
lating requests, and admit them to the commander in 
such order and in such numbers as was considered 
proper; to give information to people who came to make 
inquiries of various sorts, in such cases as he was able 
to furnish the requisite information, etc., etc. These 
duties he discharged with such courtesy, intelligence, 
and tact, as to render valuable service not only to the 
commander but to the people, and I found it expedient 
to retain him in the place until he was mustered out of 
service. I knew of his literary ability before, but he 
made it more manifest while he was with me. He wrote 
several poems of merit during that time, one of which 
in particular I remember, for he read it to me one morn- 
ing just after I came in. It was entitled the 'Joy 
Gun.' Mrs. Miller had seen in a newspaper the account 
of a negro who appeared at army headquarters in Fort 
Monroe, I believe, and asked the general in command 
to fire a joy gun, so that the company of poor, starved 
people whom this man had brought out of bondage, to 
within a mile or two of the fort, might hear the gun and 
know that they were near friends. She cut this out of 
the paper and giving it to me said, ' This is a fine sub- 
ject for a poem; give it to Realf and tell him to write.' 
I did so, and he read the poem to me as above stated. 
He was very proud of it, and gave me a copy to present 
to Mrs. Miller. 

" Realf was a favorite among the officers at Nashville, 
and was very popular with the people, for he treated all 
visitors with such urbanity and polite attention as to 
win their good opinion. He was especially kind to the 
poor people who came, manifested interest in their suf- 
ferings, listened to their tales of sorrow, and often came 



lxii 



in and personally stated their cases, and made their 
appeals as a friend to them with almost poetic eloquence. 
The rich and powerful who came found him respectful 
and polite, but not over sympathetic. Realf was the 
friend of the lowly, the ignorant and poor, and often 
their advocate. I was greatly pleased with Realf as an 
aide-de-camp, and believed him a sincere, earnest, pa- 
triotic man. He was never with me in battle." 

With his mustering out of the Union army, there fol- 
low incidents and life chapters not so attractive, and the 
following of which is a painful duty indeed to this 
writer. 

The marriages of Richard Realf have been much dis- 
cussed. I use the plural, though legally there was but 
one marriage. The second ceremony was bigamous in 
character, and Realf had no knowledge whatever of his 
being free from the wholesome and honorable relation 
that he first entered upon. The third relationship entered 
upon after he had obtained from one State court a divorce 
from the woman he contracted marriage with at Roches- 
ter, New York, was, if any validity could attach, of the 
common-law order. His partner in this third union was 
the mother of children by him, and everywhere in his 
latter years he spoke of her as " my wife." His efforts, 
letters, and speech were burdened by his intense desire to 
take care of her and the children. These were triplets, 
all girls, and fortunately these have been adopted and 
well provided for. The son has grown to manhood and 
is spoken of as in every way worthy and upright. My 

lxiii 



part just here is to tell the facts as to the real and first 
marriage. 

Sophia Emery Graves was a native of Maine, born, I 
believe, in the neighborhood of Bangor. I have been 
informed, whether correctly or not I do not know, that 
there was some relationship through marriage with 
Hannibal Hamlin, once Senator and Vice-President of 
the United States. Her people were, however, fairly 
well-to-do Maine folks, and the young woman herself 
became a teacher and went west to a sister in Indiana, 
— Mrs. Furniss, of Furnissville, Porter County, about 
40 miles east-by-south of Chicago. My knowledge of 
this marriage came first from the fact that at Realf's 
funeral, while the Grand Army escort was passing from 
Oakland, across the bay to San Francisco, a strange 
lady, looking upon the face of the dead, started in sur- 
prise and remarked to her escort, "Why, that's Captain 
Realf, whom I saw married." She said no more, and 
got out of the way, evidently desirous of avoiding public 
talk. Shortly afterward an article appeared in an Ohio 
paper denouncing the dead man as having been a biga- 
mist. I could not trace this to any positive source, 
though strongly desirous of so doing, in order to learn 
the actual status of Catherine " Realf," nee Casidy, the 
Pittsburg woman whose pursuit of Realf to California 
was the incentive to his suicide. The Reverend Alex- 
ander Clark, D.D., then Editor of The Protestant Meth- 
odist Monthly, now deceased, sent me a letter signed 
"S. Emery." The handwriting was fine and original, 

lxiv 



and though it looked feminine, the contents implied that 
the writer was a man. If so, it must have been an army- 
comrade of Realf's. I wrote to the address given and 
received a reply at once, the contents of which was 
somewhat startling. The writer stated her sex and 
claimed to be the lawful wife of my friend. 

" I submit," she wrote from Springfield, Mass., under 
date of March 8, 1879, " a true statement of my relations 
to him reluctantly, for I would not add another dark 
chapter to his already too much blurred life. / was 
his wife. . . . The 88th Illinois — the regiment in 
which R. served — was formed in Chicago. The colonel 
(Chadbourne of Maine, formerly) of this regiment was 
a connection of mine, and many of the privates were 
young men or boys, who had been my pupils or neigh- 
bors in that small Western town where I then lived, and 
it was through my interest in the welfare of these sol- 
diers that I became intimate with Realf. We were mar- 
ried in June, 1865. R. remained with me until 
August or September, when, having received a commis- 
sion in a colored regiment stationed * south,' he pro- 
ceeded thither, leaving me at the house of my brother- 
in-law, E. L. Furniss, in northern Indiana. It was 
intended that I should rejoin him speedily, but it became 
evident that the troops would soon be mustered out. I 
awaited his coming north again. His letters were fre- 
quent and full of plans for our future, of his literary 
ventures, and of his perils while investigating cases of 
outrages against the negroes. I received a letter dated 
Feb. 24, 1866, stating that the troops were to be imme- 
diately disbanded, and that he should be on his way 
home before I could have time to answer. That was 
the last letter I ever received from him, and I never 

lxv 



saw him again. Inquiries were made, but the officers 
who were with him during the winter only know that 
they left him at Vicksburg ready, as he told them, to 
come north or ' home.' " 

Mrs. S. E. Graves-Realf states that the next time she 
Tieard of Realf was in the fall of the same year when 
Joel Benton published in The Independent a notable letter 
of the wanderer written to Humphrey Noyes, of the 
Oneida Community. She continues, in the letter I am 
quoting from: 

" After reading these letters I determined that, if do- 
mestic ties were burdensome to him, he should never be 
annoyed or troubled by me. He might seek me if he 
chose, but I should never go to him. I knew that I had 
made a marriage that could only bring misery in some 
form or other, and I accepted the penalty without a 
murmur. After recovering from a serious illness that 
followed his desertion, I returned to my relatives in 
Maine and have lived a quiet, retired life with them 
ever since. Not many of my relatives or friends, so 
reticent have I been in regard to my marriage and de- 
sertion, knew that the Richard Realf of John Brown 
notoriety was in any way connected with my husband. 
When his poems or items in regard to him met my eyes 
I received a shock as if some long-lost friend had been 
suddenly recalled to mind, but when I saw the account 
of his untimely end I found I could still feel sorrow 
for the woes he had heaped upon himself by his reck- 
less life, and for many weeks newspapers became a tor- 
ture to me. I can not believe that he was as heedless 
of all moral or social laws as the reports, if true, prove 
him." 

Ixvi 



She then declares that, as the evidence of his bigam- 
ous marriage and other connections came to her, she re- 
adopted her mother's name of Emery and wrote to her 
friends to thus address her. Referring to the son that 
Realf left behind as a fruit of his last relationship, Mrs. 
Realf wrote: " I am interested in that child — where is 
he, and whom does he call mother?" Later she ex- 
pressed a wish to adopt the boy, but, after a visit to Mrs. 
Whapham, concluded to withdraw entirely from all 
Realf connections — even ceasing any correspondence. 
In closing this first letter, the great-hearted woman 
writes anent a proposed biography that the writer 
should 

" Touch lightly upon his marital enormities — if men- 
tioned at all — for the sake of the child and of his aged 
parents. Had R. realized ' Our acts our angels are, or 
good or ill,' he would have left a brighter record be- 
hind him. ... I would not deal harshly with his 
memory, for ■ God and the angels know ' alone what 
were his temptations, struggles, and atonements during 
his ill-starred life." 

The greater part of his letters to Furnissville were 
destroyed with other papers on Mrs. Realf's recovery 
from the brain fever which marked her sweet young 
face and whitened to silver her sunny brown hair. I 
saw her but once, and she impressed me as both fine 
and fragile in body and mind. She died some three 
years ago. It was the desire to prevent renewal of pain 
to this lady as well as not to burden with reminiscent 

lxvii 



sorrows and hindersome memories another, who was 
bravely and faithfully struggling out of false conditions 
— I refer to the mother of the Poet's children — that in 
great part is due the delay of years in fulfilling the ob- 
ligation my friend's dying request laid upon me. If I 
could not help to raise his son by an early publication, 
I could at least hinder noisome discussion, which would 
have injured him seriously. With the death of the law- 
ful Mrs. Realf, for whom there can be nothing but 
the sweetest of sympathy, and the passage of years 
laboriously occupied in gathering my friend's fugitive 
poems, and in tracing his erratic wanderings, I felt that 
the publication of poems and memoir could no longer 
be delayed. I am assured in conscience and judgment 
that its effect has on the whole been wise. 

It remains necessary in completing this painful record 
to refer to the authenticated certificate of marriage, 
which document is in the safe of the publishers of this 
volume. It is not a question of scandal, nor one of pun- 
ishment for one who made the life of my weak and 
unhappy friend most miserable, causing him finally to 
escape by the gate of suicide. That the woman, to 
escape whom Realf committed suicide, has no legal 
rights, the following is sufficient proof: 



"No. Be it known, that on the 9th day of 

June, 1865, the Clerk of the Porter Circuit Court issued 
a marriage license, of which the following is a true 
record, to-wit: 



lxviii 



< 

C 

< 

X 

y 



"State of Indiana, Porter Co., ss: 

" To any person empowered by Law to solemnize Mar- 
riages in said County: 

" You are hereby authorized to join together as Hus- 
band and Wife, Richard Realf and Sophie E. Graves, 
according to the laws of the State of Indiana. 

<4 In Testimony Whereof, I, E. J. Jones, Clerk of the 
Circuit Court of said County, hereunto subscribe my 
name and (L. S.) affix the seal of said Court, at my 
office in Valpariaso, this 9th day of June, A.D., 1865. 
E. J. Jones, 

by H. W. Talcott, Deputy." 



"State of Indiana, Porter Co., ss; 

"This certifies that I joined in marriage as husband 
and wife, Richard Realf and Sophie E. Graves, on the 
10th day of June, 1865. 

H. H. Morgan, 

Pastor Cong. Church, 

Mich. City." 
" Filed and Recorded the 2d day of September, a.d., 
1865. E. J. Jones, Clerk." 



" State of Indiana, Porter County, ss; 

11 I, Rufus P. Wells, Clerk of the Circuit Court in the 
County of Porter and the State of Indiana, hereby cer- 
tify that the foregoing is a full, true, and complete copy 
of the record, marriage license, and certificate of mar- 
riage ot Richard Real! ana bophia £.. Lrraves, now 01 
record in the office of the Clerk of the Porter Circuit 
Court. 

"Witness my hand and the seal of said Court, this 
[l.s.] 7th day of October, A.D., 1879. 

Rufus P. Wells, 

Clerk of the Circuit Court." 

lxix 



There is little reason to doubt that on mustering out, 
March 20, 1866, at Vicksburg, Realf really intended to 
go direct to Furnissville and the home of his wife. 
Somewhere and somehow a fantastic impulse led to his 
abandonment of this purpose, and he went direct to 
Washington instead. In the many confidences I have 
had extended to me, and the kindly help that has often 
been unstintedly given in collecting the stray and widely 
dispersed poems, etc., of my friend, I have learned of 
many incidents that are liable to misinterpretation, not 
necessary to repeat or publish. There was, I doubt 
not, on Realf s part, an unwarranted fancy for a lady 
in the Federal City. She was an accomplished, graceful, 
and intellectual young woman, whom he became slightly 
acquainted with at a house he boarded in while waiting 
the fall before for his commission in the colored regi- 
ment, and there could never have been any warrant on 
her part for the passionate furore that appears to have 
possessed him. She had expressed an outspoken admi- 
ration of his genius as a poet. But Realf went to 
Washington in place of Indiana, and remained there a 
short time, when he left for the Cumberland Valley. 
He then proceeded to New York city. Between June 
and August there is no trace of his movements, but in 
the latter part of July he was known to have been taken 
sick of fever at French's Hotel, for a paragraph to that 
effect came under my eye at the Federal City. I came 
to New York soon afterward, for the purpose of finding 
him, but he had gone elsewhere. I believe John Swinton 

lxx 



found him at the time and comforted him with the glow 
of his true, warm friendship. The remarkable corres- 
pondence Realf had with the head of the Oneida Com- 
munity belongs to this period and is interesting,, 
although the poet never entered that community. The 
correspondence is too lengthy to reproduce in full, but, 
as it illustrates the strange processes of my friend's 
mentality, I give several of the letters, access to which 
I have had through the kindness of Theodore L. Pitt, 
Secretary of the Community. Realf's letter to the com- 
munity, written from French's Hotel, New York, July 
2, 1866. was as follows: 

11 President Perfectionist Association — Sir: I have the 
honor respectfully to apply for information respecting 
the nature, character of government, and conditions 
precedent for membership of the Perfectionist Society. 

11 Not being thoroughly informed upon these matters 
I trouble you with this communication to state 
% "That, recently at Vicksburg, Miss., I learned from 
a former comrade in arms of the existence of your soci- 
ety. That I am 34 years of age, pretty well educated, 
that in various grades of private, non-commissioned 
officer, and officer, I served four years in the volunteer 
army of the Union, that I have in my possession the 
official proofs of this, besides the proofs of the recom- 
mendation of seven general officers, of my appointment 
to a First Lieutenantcy in the regular army of the 
United States (from which my refusal to endorse the 
policy of President Johnson barred me), that I am an 
occasional contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's 
Monthly and Weekly, that since my muster out of service 
three months ago, I have resided near Vicksburg, Miss., 

lxxi 



that I came north partly on account of pecuniary losses 
sustained in consequence of the proscription to which 
loyal men are subjected, and partly for the purpose, if it 
were possible, of associating myself with your own or 
some other communistic society, 

4 Far off from the clamor of liars, belied in the hubbub 
of lies, 
Where each man walks with his head in a cloud of 
poisonous flies.' 

" I arrived in this city this morning [Realf left Penn- 
sylvania a month before] and I hasten to address you 
this brief note, trusting to elicit from your courtesy a 
reply to the request I have preferred, as well as a state- 
ment whether and under what circumstances I should 
t>e eligible for membership. 

" I am quite poor, and unaccustomed to manual labor. 
I am willing, however, to overcome my ignorance, and 
I should not at all object to pay my board until I learned 
to make myself useful. If you give me the information 
sought for, and accord me permission to hold a personal 
interview, I will bring with me letters and papers cor- 
roborative of all the statements I have made. Please 
address me by next mail at French's Hotel. 
" Most respectfully, 

" Richard Realf." 

A friendly response was written to this letter from 
Oneida, and as Mr. J. H. Noyes, the President and 
founder of the Oneida Community, was at that time in 
New York city, it was suggested that Mr. Realf call 
upon him. 

On July 24, Realf wrote: 

" Dear Sir: Acting upon your suggestion I have 

lxxii 



called upon Mr. Noyes, and held a long conversation 
with him. ... I propose to visit Oneida on Thurs- 
day, leaving New York on that day. I have read very 
carefully the pamphlets you were kind enough to send 
me, and I find the contents of one to be embodied in the 
1 Berean,' a copy of which I purchased from Mr. Noyes. 

" I shall not come to Oneida with any purpose of being 
proselytized, or with any special predisposition towards 
you. If, as I think, judging from what my friend told 
me about you, and from what I learn through other 
sources, your life is the most Christ-like that is being 
lived — and if I can assimilate myself with you, not in 
special theoretical views, but on the fundamental basis 
of the soul — then I shall seek admittance to your 
community. Nor do I doubt your capacity to judge of 
the existence of such assimilation, if it shall exist. The 
eyes of the pure-minded see very clearly. Whoso is 
God-like, he hath something of the omniscience of God. 
. . It is right before I come that I should relate to 
you, in brief, the history of my life. [He then states the 
main points of his career without comment.] 

"But you must not judge that, as Mr. Noyes sug- 
gested, the adventurous and changeful character of the 
circumstances of my life indicate desire of change. I 
asked him to try whether he could not discover a spirit- 
ual unity of purpose underlying all these things; and I 
ask you to try and do the same thing. 

" I shall, of course, be glad to answer any questions 
which may be asked me, and I have mentioned so much 
of what is personal to enable you the better to propound 
them. Briefly, during all my life, I have, as it were, 
been haunted with a voice as of heaven, compelling me 
upon the altars of sacrifice and renunciation. Often and 
often I have tried to stifle it; often and often I have vio- 

lxxiii 



lated its commands — tried to smother it, denied its val- 
idity, blasphemed its sanctity; but never could I escape 
it for all that. And because out in the world where 
people don't see God, for that He is out of physical sight, 
I can not live after the awful ideals which I can not es- 
cape; because out in the world the howl of the beast so 
often drowns out the song of the seraph within me; be- 
cause the cares of it and the bitternesses of it make and 
keep me unclean; because, while alien from God and 
not in at-one-ment I perish in my soul until I am so re- 
lated; because holding it true 

1 That men may rise on stepping stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things,' 

I desire to die to all sin, and to become alive to all right- 
eousness, and because I am well assured that those 
whom the Eternal Spirit has awakened from low and 
material delights to a state of spiritual holiness and in- 
tuition, constitute, as it were, a divine atmosphere for 
the reinvigoration of needy souls, therefore I propose to 
visit your Community, in the belief that if God sees it 
best for me I shall gravitate toward you, and that if not 
I shall at least have been strengthened and comforted. 

*' Sincerely, 
%t Theodore L. Pitt. Richard Realf." 

On the same day that the above was written, Col. 
Realf wrote the following letter to Mr. Noyes: 

" French's Hotel, New York, July 24, 1866. 
" Dear Sir: My time will be so occupied with business 
engagements during the remainder of my stay in New 
York city, that I fear I may not again be able to do 
myself the pleasure to call upon you. And lest I should 
not, I desire to thank you very sincerely for your good- 

lxxiv 



ness to me yesterday, and to add one or two words to 
the matter of our discourse. . . . Under all and 
running through all the changeful circumstances of my 
eventful life I have felt and heard — I have not always 
obeyed — the everlasting imperative, ' Thou shalt work 
in well-doing,' leaving me hardly any rest by day or by 
night, because I could not translate it into my conduct 
in the manner of a visible gospel of truth and love. 
The world is so very atheistic, the contagion of the 
world, of its selfishness and its jealousies, its mean pas- 
sions and meaner aims, is so easy of acquisition, that it 
has sometimes — quite often — caused me to be worsted 
by the devil in the encounters which in common with all 
men I have had to undergo. But nevertheless I could 
not content myself to live after the outward semblance 
— I could not rest in the visible comfort — I wanted al- 
ways to live in accord with the Invisible Truth, and 
very many times it seems to me that the struggle in my 
nature between the beast and the seraph, the flesh and 
the spirit, was greater than I could bear. It seemed 
sometimes as if 'All his waves had gone over me,' and 
as if there was nothing left for me to do but to die. 

" Do you, indeed, doubt the existence of a certain 
class of souls that can not satisfy their natures with the 
common modes of life, in whom a hidden principle 
drives them, so to speak, to seek better and nobler 
modes of life, in whom the longing after the infinite 
predominates, and by whom all other ties must be loos- 
ened and sacrificed, if need be, to the growth and devel- 
opment of the soul ? Do you, indeed, doubt that there 
are some in the world who, although alienated from 
God, would gladly submit to everything of suffering 
and privation if, thereby, they could be brought into a 
relationship of oneness with their Heavenly Parent ? 

lxxv 



" But indeed, sir, there are such men and women, 
who neither by the wealth, nor the praises, nor the 
pleasures, nor the honors, nor the splendors and power 
of the world, can be satisfied; men and women who are 
bankrupt, finding not the peace of God. And are not 
such people of you and yours, whether with them or 
not? To die to sin and to live to righteousness, is not 
that your faith also ? It is not necessary to pronounce 
any shibboleth to become one of you, is it? If I desire 
to be at one with Christ, so that His grace and love and 
purity may run through me like a channel, that is 
enough, is it not? And I believe that just in proportion 
as we are Christ-like we attain His infallibility of in- 
sight and judgment into the characters of men. I have 
no fears. Therefore, dear sir, I shall go to Oneida, 
making my proposed visit, trusting everything to the 
direction of the Higher Powers which have guided my 
life hitherto. If I (to use your own term) assimilate 
with you, I shall remain. If not, still do me the justice 
to believe that wherever I am and whatever I may do, I 
shall not cease to labor and pray that ' His will may be 
done on earth even as it is in Heaven; ' and so I am, 
11 Gratefully your friend, 

" Richard Realf." 

The days passed, but Realf did not appear at Oneida. 
Nothing was heard from him till the middle of August, 
when he wrote that he had been very ill with typhoid 
fever, but still expressing his determination of visiting 
the Community. 

The poet never went to Oneida, but Secretary Pitt 
says that, sometime in the following October, he re- 
ceived a letter, evidently from a woman, signed S. E. 

lxxvi 



Realf, and dated at Furnissville, Ind., making inquiries 
in regard to Col. Realf. From subsequent brief letters 
from her, it appears that she had received copies of the 
poet's letters to the Community. On recovering from 
his illness, Realf appears to have left New York city, 
probably intending to go to Oneida, but the army re- 
cruiting records show that he got no further than 
Rochester. 

The private soldier soon began to electrify the literary 
people of Rochester by the publication of a number of 
poems, which attracted the attention of men like Ros- 
siter Johnson, who was then on the staff of the Democrat, 
of which the writer was the Washington correspondent. 
Mr. Johnson sought the poet's acquaintance, after hav- 
ing ascertained his identity with the authorship of con- 
tributions to magazines which had not escaped his vigi- 
lant, critical notice, only to find that he was a soldier 
who had just been ordered from the city. Of Realf's 
gravest fault and greater misfortune in the illegal mar- 
riage contracted there, Mr. Johnson knew nothing till 
years after his death. Catherine Cassidy and Richard 
Realf were married at the Church of the Trinity, 
Rochester, early in October, 1867. Realf himself never 
denied his folly in this matter, though he never ac- 
knowledged, except to his sister, some ten years later, 
the illegality of the act. It is not supposable that he 
believed himself to have then had another and living 
wife. There has been no direct evidence before me to 
prove that he even inquired as to the whereabouts, or of 

lxxvii 



the life or death of the lady, but there are many details 
which circumstantially go to show that somehow he 
learned of her severe illness from brain fever at Fur- 
nissville, after his disappearance in the spring of 1866. 

Her departure from Indiana, and the change made 
in the spelling of her married, and later of her maiden 
name, might well have led to the conclusion from fugi- 
tive researches, that she was not living. In some ex- 
ceedingly pathetic letters, he afterward wrote, when 
jealousy made his second companion a raging terror to 
him, that his Rochester marriage was contracted " dur- 
ing a prolonged debauch;" and to myself and Col. Sam- 
uel F. Tappen, his two oldest Kansas friends, he declared 
that he so acted " in a fit of mental aberration." 

Realf was mustered out of the army at Fort Columbus, 
New York, and then became confidential clerk to Gen. 
Ingalls, Assistant Quartermaster-General, U. S. A. Like 
others of his always loving friends, I had lost personal 
trace of him until the accounts of a scandal appeared in 
the New York newspapers. Realf was charged by James 
Cassidy, of New York, with having on the 9th of Febru- 
ary, 1869, stolen from him the sum of $40. On this 
charge the poet was taken to the Tombs on February 
13th, before Police Justice Hogan. He denied the theft, 
but admitted taking the money, as his own or as due to 
him from ''the father of Catherine." He was dis- 
charged on his own recognizance, and, though indicted, 
the matter was never pressed to trial. Mr. W. B. 
Clarke, a former comrade of Realf s, made a thorough 

lxxviii 



inquiry, and, after sending a copy of the official record, 
declared that the charge was trumped up, as the result 
only of a marital quarrel. On the 18th, Realf was 
discharged, without trial, and after a plea of "not 
guilty" upon his verbal recognizance. It was just after 
this unfortunate affair that Realf left for South Car- 
olina. He was driven in shame to this departure, as he 
had often been assailed violently in General Ingalls' 
office. The latter himself told me that these outbreaks 
often approached insanity. In South Carolina, as else- 
where, this woe-driven son of genius, made his presence 
felt at once. His arrival in that State was during the 
Reconstruction turmoil. The poet won political as well 
as personal friends at once. Whatever faults may be 
charged to Richard Realf, that of laziness is not one, 
for my personal knowledge and continued research 
prove him to have been ready for work at every oppor- 
tunity. He wrote for the Republican State paper and 
also taught in a colored school at Graniteville. Every- 
thing was going smoothly till his fate again appeared. 
Then her violent " colorphobia " compelled him to give 
up the school. He had made himself felt as a Republi- 
can speaker. This he did at great risk, and the constant 
danger of personal violence which surrounded him at 
this time is shown in a letter, the first direct communi- 
cation I had received from him for several years — sent 
to me at Washington, just after he had been appointed 
Assistant United States Assessor of Internal Revenue 
at Graniteville. In this letter, dated Graniteville, S. C, 

lxxix 



July 9, 1869, he recounted at length the dangers and 
difficulties of his position, and urged me as one he be- 
lieved to be influential with the existing Republican 
administration, to aid him in getting transferred to some 
other locality and branch of the public service. 

I tried to do what my friend wished, but failed 
through a technical difficulty — revenue appointments 
being purely local and not open to transfers. The next 
thing I heard was that Realf had been publicly derided 
in his own household, that some revenue money had been 
misappropriated, but not by him, and generally that his 
family circumstances were insupportable. Letters giving 
gross details are in my possession, and such Republican 
friends as the former chief of the South Carolina State 
police, who was living in San Francisco when I met him 
a few years since, have told me that these allegations 
were correct, the police official having himself made 
an inquiry. The small defalcation was made good by 
friends, but Realf could not be induced to return, having 
gone to Augusta, Georgia. He then left for the North, 
and the next known of him was by mention in the daily 
papers of Indianapolis, where his Nemesis had again 
found him. Scandal at once arose and Realf again dis- 
appeared. In December, 1869, he was heard of at Pitts- 
burg, in a destitute condition. The temperance move- 
ment inaugurated by Francis Murphy was well under 
way, and Realf at once became one of its most shining 
converts. He was then befriended by gentlemen whose 
manly charity soon lifted him into usefulness and posi- 

lxxx 



tion, affording him thereby six years of successful and 
attractive life — an oasis indeed, amid the bleak and 
blasted barrens of his desert years. The horrors of the 
six years preceding, even though he himself had woven 
the corroding meshes, are almost unendurable even to 
research, and perfectly unspeakable as to publicity of 
detail. What must they have been to him who suffered ? 
At last, however, he stiffened against the fury that pur- 
sued. Yet when it appeared in Pittsburg, carrying an 
infant in arms, Realf believing, nay hoping, for a short 
period, that the babe might be, as was asserted, his own 
child, seriously designed taking up again his sad life- 
burden. This is shown by a letter written to a friend, 
the Rev. Dr. Hanna (now of Washington, D. C), whose 
church he afterward joined. Becoming convinced, how- 
ever, that the child had been obtained from an orphan 
asylum, and that its age forbade his being its father, he 
refused to care for the alleged mother. On her com- 
plaint of abandonment, he was arrested and incarcerated 
in the city jail. Through the efforts of the Reverend 
David Schindler and some other friends, Realf was soon 
released, and began again his temperance work. At 
this time he was the inmate of a Christian Home, and 
was a constant writer for The Christian Radical. The 
child alleged to be his soon died, and Realf steadily de- 
clined a renewal of marital life. 

In 1872, when I was in Pittsburg on the occasion of a 
Union soldiers' and sailors' convention, for which Realf 
wrote one of his strongest lyrics, entitled "Rally," 

lxxxi 



Mr. Brigham, editor-in-chief of the Pittsburg Commer- 
cial, the paper on which Realf served for five years as 
an editorial writer, described to me the way in which 
he was pursued by his fate. He told me of the inter- 
est Realf's story, and especially his eloquence, had 
aroused. He went to hear him one evening, and during 
the speech a woman created a disturbance. As Mr. Brig- 
ham watched Col. Realf, he became impressed with the 
conviction that a serious tragedy was impending. He 
felt that the outraged orator would, if no one inter- 
vened, soon do some desperate act. Realf once declared 
•to me while in San Francisco that he would kill the 
woman and himself too if he was again followed. So 
the kindly-hearted, cool-headed editor secured an intro- 
duction and asked Realf to call and see him on the next 
morning. He promised and was on hand to a minute. 
Mr. Brigham at once asked if Realf wanted work. The 
editor was embarrassed when Realf looked at him in a 
dazed fashion, and then burst into tears. The result 
was his immediate employment at a fair salary, which 
was soon increased. Realf remained in that office until 
1876, when the paper was merged with another. Mr. 
Brigham, now dead, told me after Realf's death that 
he both trusted and honored him, and never saw or 
personally heard of any loose or other unworthy con- 
duct. He opened his own doors to his brilliant associate, 
and as he had daughters to care for and was a man of 
the strictest morality, the fact shows trust and esteem. 
Realf was unquestionably much esteemed by his profes- 

lxxxii 



sional associates. That six years was a harvest time 
of good endeavor and finished work. He lectured a 
good deal. His military poems gained him renown. 
He published largely and in most ways forged steadily 
to the front. 

In September, 1872, Col. Realf applied for a divorce: 
the Rochester woman, having remained in Pittsburg, 
still caused him much annoyance. The case was heard 
before the Court of Common Pleas for Alleghany 
County, on the 14th of February, 1873, and decided in 
Realf 's favor, the "jury having found the facts in com- 
plainant's bill to be true," and it was "ordered that 
said Richard Realf be divorced." The libellant was 
also ordered to " pay the cost of this proceeding," and 
the decree was made absolute. At this time Realf was 
in the fullest health and spirit, rejoicing over his free- 
dom. His sister, Sarah Whapham, her husband and 
family, had come from England, and settled at farming 
at Bulger, Pennsylvania. He also planned a visit to his 
parents, which was carried out in the early summer. 
His letters to Mrs. Whapham and other friends during 
this period were joyous in tone and even boyish in 
spirit. He evidently enjoyed his visit to Buxton and 
elsewhere in England. 

On his return, however, and arrival at Pittsburg, he 
was met by news that staggered and unmanned him. 
An appeal had been taken to the Supreme Court, and 
it, by a decree " venire facia de novo," ordered a reversal 
of the divorce. The Court declared that the specific 

lxxxiii 



charges were not proven, and the Court allowed libel- 
lant to reopen the case. The result was a reversal of 
the verdict. Realf paid alimony until early in 1877, 
when he declared and proved his inability to do so any 
longer. His attorneys urged upon him to renew the 
application, declaring the setting aside to have been 
purely technical, and that they could readily re-win the 
suit. Realf refused to take any further action. When 
told of the reversal at his editorial desk, he fell in a 
syncope upon the floor and broke down utterly. His 
sister afterward said that her brother's sanity had, she 
feared, been affected ever since the decree was revoked. 
She added that insanity was "hereditary in the Realf 
family," mentioning that two brothers and two sisters 
of their mother had been so afflicted, one of the brothers 
being a suicide. Realf believed the woman to be his 
evil fate, and was all the time trying to make that con- 
viction square with the nobler spiritual courage thai he 
still possessed. It was at this time he wrote : 

"We do not rightly seize the type of Socrates if we 
can ever forget he was the husband of Xantippe, 
nor of David if we can only think of him as the mur- 
derer of Uriah, nor Peter if we can simply remember 
that he denied the Master. Our vision is only blind- 
ness if we can never bring ourselves to see the possibil- 
ities of deep mystic aspirations behind the outer life of 
a man." 

The loss of his editorial position hurt, and he was, 
by his own nerveless volition, soon in the toils of another 

lxxxiv 



union, which renewed anger on the part of her from 
whom he was, like a blind man without a guiding sound 
or stick, aimlessly seeking to escape. Yet he sought in 
work to meet the new obligations that bore upon him. 
There was nothing of public moment, except his literary- 
work, between 1873 an d the spring of 1877. His brain 
and soul, however, seem to have become clarified. He 
published quite freely, writing among others at this 
time his striking poem of " Loyalty and Charity," the 
"Song of Pittsburg," and "Introspection and Retro- 
spection," for the centennial celebration of 1876. Most 
of his deepest and purest sonnets, " Christdom," also 
11 Symbolism," " Little Children," " My Slain," were of 
this period. And it is with these, and not the crawlings 
of the flesh, except as they influence or divert, that we 
are concerned. 

The next step in his embittered life was made in a 
very sincere effort on his part to win a working place 
for himself and those then dependent upon him, as a 
lecturer on literary, ethical, and political questions. By 
the fall of 1877 he had launched out fairly as a lecturer. 
He carefully prepared addresses on "Temperance," 
he being then regarded as, next to Francis Murphy, the 
orator of the movement that bears the latter's name. 
In addition he had a famous war oration — "Battle 
Flashes; " one on the " Public Schools and their Free- 
dom from Sectarian Control;" "John Brown," which 
was never written out in full; " Shakespeare;" "Poetry 
and Labor," and others. His addresses at Grand Army 

lxxxv 



posts and reunions, made chiefly in Pennsylvania 
and Ohio, were very popular. He was unfortunate 
in not being able to secure a good business manager, 
and in entering upon this field at a period of severe 
business depression. He was popular and well known 
all through Central and Northern Ohio, and in West- 
ern and Central Pennsylvania, yet the weary winter's 
work brought only disaster and ill health. He became 
the trusted friend of a Springfield family, and to the 
youngest daughter of this household I am indebted 
for the use of a series of letters, which, as John Mor- 
ley wrote of Rousseau's letters to Therese, "are like 
one of the great master symphonies whose themes fall 
in strokes of melting pity upon the heart." The 
sincere friendship of this large-brained young woman, 
Mary P. Nimmo (now Mrs. Ballantyne, of Washing- 
ton), evoked as sincere a regard on Realf's part. 
There are a large number of these letters written day 
by day, couched in the tones of a fond but sick 
brother. Evidently they were met in the same spirit. 
I give a few extracts. These letters cover several 
months of hard work, mental agony, and severe physical 
suffering, including internal hurts caused by a railway 
collision, and the affliction which, in the late winter and 
spring of 1877, produced almost complete blindness and 
long confinement in a New York hospital. Space does 
not permit the use of such copious extracts from these 
letters as both judgment and inclination would justify. 
I give, however, without date, (except to say that 

lxxxvi 



they were written in October and November of 1876), 
some brief quotations: 

"I am breaking down, and have a horrible racking 
cough. But that does not prevent me from remember- 
ing with delighted gratitude your own, your mother's, 
and your sister's manifold fragrant kindnesses. 

. . How very greatly you mistake alike the facts 
and the desire, in your talk about 'wealth.' There is 
not a poorer man, so far as money is concerned, in the 
country, than myself. I live from hand to mouth. Is 
it any wonder that I am solicitous, and that my failing 
physical powers (I am paying the costs of my service 
during the war) make me very anxious regarding the 
possible future ? I have never cared for money, except 
as it enabled me to help others. I wish I had. Even a 
fool's forehead takes on a philosophic seeming when it 
is gilded with gold. I wish I might come to your quiet 
home and rest awhile. I hunger toward you, for- 
getting your youth and beauty, my age and decrepi- 
tude, and the impassable gulf between us, and only fam- 
ishing for the touch of your hand, the sound of your 
voice, and the serene restfulness of your presence. I 
will surely come when I can, and as fast. So would 
any other starveling beggar, homeless amid a world of 
spiritual homes. Don't mind my words. ... I 
think I should like to go to bed and sleep a whole 
week, and then awake in the everlastingnesses. I am 
tired ! It is not the outward winter, dear friend, that is 
bleak, it is the inward dreariness." ... 

In 1876, removed to the Pacific Coast, and so, for 
the time being, lost track of Realf's movements. I 
knew that he had lost his editorial position, but thought 
him fairly successful in the lecture field, until a pathetic 

lxxxvii 



letter reached me, exposing his woful condition. I at 
once made an effort to aid him. There were several old 
Kansas friends on the coast, among them being Col. 
Samuel F. Tappan, who was a close personal friend; 
Henry Villard had also met Realf and was ready to help 
with transportation; Col. Alexander T. Hawes, a lead- 
ing insurance man of San Francisco, was an old Kansas 
friend, and ready to help. The writer owes sincere 
thanks to this gentleman, for his own as well as Realf's 
sake and name. Ex-General John F. Miller, on whose 
staff Col. Realf had served, expressed earnest sympathy 
and was most helpful, warranting the statement also 
that he would see to his ex-staff officer's employment 
after his arrival in San Francisco. So with the aid of 
Mr. Villard, Hon. Russell Errett, and Senator John P. 
Jones, transportation was procured from New York to 
Ogden, at which place I was enabled to have him fur- 
nished for the trip to the coast. A small purse was also 
filled. 

In this sad stress the helpful friend in New York 
proved to be Rossiter Johnson, and he has remained so 
through all the years that have followed. Before re- 
ceiving Realf's letter, on seeing a statement that the 
wife of a literary man named Realf had become the 
mother of triplets and was in distress, Mr. Johnson 
made an energetic effort to find out if she was related 
to the poet he admired, and, having done so, proceeded 
to do what ha might to lift her burdens a little. The 
boy Richard was cared for at the Child's Hospital, 

lxxxviii 



where, however, he contracted a disease of the eyes, 
which, soon after, his father took from him, and was 
thereby soon prostrated almost to the verge of blindness. 
The mother was cared for at the Homeopathic Hospital 
on Ward's Island. The girl children were soon after- 
ward adopted by a lady of means. Realf himself was 
admitted to the New York Opthalmic Hospital. His 
pathetic, broken, yet still hopeful, spirited letters to Mr. 
Johnson show his condition, mental and material, at the 
time much more forcibly than other words can do. In 
one letter, dated May 13, he wrote: 

" I think I can give, some day, under favorable con- 
ditions, some interesting reminiscences of great English- 
men and women. And perhaps I may, if I live long 
enough, write my autobiography. ... I am walk- 
ing the edges of the abysses. I hope God will bring us 
through the stress safely. I have erred greatly in my 
life, and suffered greatly, but I have always been a ser- 
vant and never a hireling of the truth." 

Later he wrote again to Mr. Johnson: 

11 I thank you very deeply for all your goodness. But 
you can judge how impossible it has been for me, in this 
culminative stress, to do any worthy work. Sometimes 
I fear I am losing my grip on myself. Do you know of 
anybody in the city who would give one a hundred or a 
hundred and fifty dollars cash down for the sole right 
and title to all I may have written ? If I could get a 
hundred and fifty dollars for my verses, I would send 

L (his wife) to a hospital, and take for myself a 

second-class ticket to San Francisco. 

" I will tell you, when I see you, of the reasons why 

lxxxix 



I am so desirous to get far away, far away. They are 
not base ones; but I shall never be able to do that of 
which I am capable in the East, — at least, not until a 
certain person dies; and you know it is written that 'the 
good die first.' Out in San Francisco I can find work, 
and recover my poise." 

Under date of May 23, 1877, he wrote to Miss Nimmo, 
at Springfield, Ohio: 

"I have suffered excruciating tortures. I never 
thought I should be so poor, and helpless, and sightless, 
but it is God's will; God's will be done." 

On the 24th he wrote: 

M I beg your pardon for troubling you. It may be 
the last time. I can not tell. I can not see a word of 
that which I write. I can barely distinguish the black 
marks. I am in so desperate a strait as to humble my 
pride enough to say that I would be very grateful if 
the friends of temperance in Springfield, who re- 
member me with any interest, would, in view of my 
affliction, (I am almost totally blind — entirely so so far 
as reading is concerned) of the fact that I am at the end 
of my scanty resources, and that this is not a free hos- 
pital, contribute a little purse toward the alleviation of 
my present pressing needs. I do not mind thus unbar- 
ing my bosom to you, but I should not like it to be 
known to any one else that the suggestion came from 
me." 

Richard Realf arrived in San Francisco during the 
firpi week of July, 1878. He resided there less than 
four months, before taking his own life at Oakland, on 
the 28th of October following. The friends who wel- 



corned him on his arrival were shocked at his physical 
weakness. He was feeble in step and evidently had 
barely recovered from a struggle for mere existence. 
His voice, always musical in tone, now ran habitually 
on a minor key, vibrant with a deep sadness. His still 
abundant hair was almost white, and the face was worn 
and lined with suffering. It was apparent at once that 
he was unfit, temporarily at least, for work of any kind, 
though his anxiety therefor was feverishly eager. He 
was made comfortable, and, a few days afterward, 
Gen. Miller took him to the Napa Valley, and made him 
his guest on a beautiful ranch the family owned there. 
Had Realf so chosen, the General would have been glad 
to have made for him a permanent abode thereon, and, 
indeed, the offer of a sort of stewardship, or at least 
bookkeeper with residence, was made. But Realf's 
original design of writing and lecturing had the strong- 
est hold. He was, above all else, desirous of bringing 
his boy and the mother, of whom he always spoke with 
ardent affection, to San Francisco as speedily as pos- 
sible. To that end he urged an application for a clerk- 
ship in the U. S. Mint, of which another Kansas friend, 
General Lagrange, was then superintendent. There 
was no vacancy, but the promise of appointment at the 
first opportunity was made, and the Colonel was offered 
a place temporarily on the laborers' roll, in the melting 
and coining room. He did not hesitate a moment. As 
a matter of fact he was unfit for this work, but, half 
blind, worn from recent illness, suffering too from 



chronic attacks of rheumatism and other results of 
army service, he still persisted. His work was carrying 
the molten gold from furnace to coining machine and 
tables. Once he stumbled and was severely burned. I 
write of this because there was always something stal- 
wart in Realf 's determination to care for himself, and in 
the reticence also which prevented his warmest friends 
from fully knowing of his conditions and circumstances. 
His pay was small, not, I believe, over $60 per month. 
He lived economically and constantly sent small sums 
to New York for those he had left behind. 

His presence soon attracted attention. The city news- 
papers mentioned him in pleasant terms, and these notices 
were referred toby Eastern papers. In this way his new 
residence, unfortunately, became known to the one 
person he desired to avoid, together with, in all proba- 
bility, an exaggerated idea of his well-doing. Person- 
ally I became aware of her watchfulness by the receipt 
of an insolent letter, signed by the name of " Holmes," 
certainly a person wholly unknown to me, in which I 
was berated for inducing a man to desert his wife; the 
reference, of course, being to Richard Realf, and the per- 
son who, at Pittsburg, claimed to bear his name. Nat- 
urally angered at such a missive, for I had but the 
merest shadow of knowledge of my friend's troubles, I 
showed the letter on his return to the city from the 
Napa Valley, and asked for an explanation. This was 
given at once, and his position proven by the production 
of the original divorce papers and many newspaper ex- 



tracts, showing the pursuit and persecution to which he 
had been subjected. The point of this explanation lay- 
in the fact of a very deliberately expressed determina- 
tion on his part to commit suicide, and perhaps kill the 
woman herself, if she followed him to San Francisco. 

At this time Realf was making good progress toward 
health and something of prosperity. Some of his poems 
were printed in the San Francisco Evening Post, and a 
larger number in The Argonaut, the most attractive Cal- 
ifornia weekly, of which Frank M. Pixley was then the 
editor. If he had not worked so hard physically — for 
he was unfit for drudgery of any sort — and had taken 
General Miller's offer, Richard Realf would have re- 
gained his health, and with it that mental courage and 
spiritual balance against which even his pursuer could 
not have prevailed. 

Arriving in San Francisco on the 26th of October, 
1878, in some way she had obtained his address with a 
family named Mead, on Mission Street, quite near the 
mint. Realf was at his work when she arrived. As he 
had often spoken of his "wife " and her possible arri- 
val, the landlady had no hesitation in admitting the 
person who claimed that title, stating she had just come 
from the East. In the newspaper account it was stated 
that she proceeded to an immediate search of Realf's 
belongings, turning out his clothing, examining, seizing, 
or destroying papers. She was found at this work 
when the worn and tired man returned to his lodgings. 
What occurred or was said can only be surmised. They 



remained in conversation for some time, and she was 
heard to ask him to remain, but he refused, and re- 
quested her to walk with him. This she did and they 
soon after parted. After leaving her, he went to the 
rooms of a friend named Pomeroy, remained there until 
late, and on leaving borrowed a small sum. He made 
an effort on Sunday to find me, and hunted up other 
friends. I was in Nevada. The accounts of his pro- 
ceedings on Sunday are confusing, but it is known that 
he purchased a small quantity of laudanum and chloral 
hydrate. On Monday he did not appear at the mint 
and sent no excuse. The Oakland Times of October 30, 
gives the following brief account of his ending: 

''Monday morning, about half-past eight o'clock, a 
gentleman called at the Winsor House and inquired of 
the proprietor, Mr. Wheeler, for Col. S. F. Tappan. 
On being informed that the latter gentleman had just 
taken the train for San Francisco, he requested a room, 
saying he would wait Col. Tappan's return. After tak- 
ing breakfast, he retired to his room, but soon returned 
and requested paper and envelopes, saying he desired 
to write. Shortly after he was seen to come down stairs 
and walk out into the street. He was gone for some 
time, but returned and once more went Jo his room. In 
the evening, about a quarter before seven o'clock, Mr. 
Wheeler knocked at his door, for the purpose of inform- 
ing him that the dinner hour was almost over. Receiv- 
ing no response, he went in and found the occupant 
apparently asleep. Speaking quite loudly, Mr. Wheeler 
told him that the dinner hour was almost past; also, 
that Col. Tappan had returned, and asked him if he 



wished to see him. He partially arose from the bed 
and replied that he did, whereupon Mr. Wheeler left 
the room. As he did not afterward appear, Col. Tap- 
pan concluded that he was sleeping, and refrained from 
visiting his room till morning. 

" The gentleman had registered as Richard Realf. Not 
desiring to disturb his rest, Col. Tappan did not see him 
that night. The next morning, however, he went to 
Realf's room and knocked. No response being made, 
he entered, and there, with features as calm as if he had 
not yet aroused from his sleep, Richard Realf lay cold 
in death. Dr. L. M. Buck was immediately summoned, 
but Realf had too surely accomplished his aim. On the 
table were two bottles, one labeled 'Chloral Hydrate' 
and the other ' Laudanum,' both emptied of their con- 
tents. An inquest was held, and from the testimony 
there elicited, it appeared that Realf had been driven to 
his death by troubles of a domestic nature. Two letters 
which he wrote on the day before his death, directed to 
Col. Tappan, were produced for the jury's perusal, but 
as they were strictly private and confidential they were 
not allowed to be made public. The jury returned a 
verdict in accordance with the facts educed, showing 
that he had taken laudanum with suicidal intent." 

His friend Tappan had not, like myself, been in- 
trusted with the facts and haunting fear that followed 
Realf, and so was not on the alert over his somewhat 
strange conduct at the hotel. In a letter written after 
the death, Col. Tappan says: 

" He came to my room at the Winsor early one morn- 
ing after I had left for San Francisco; it being steamer 
day, I went over much earlier than usual. On my return 



in the evening he was sleeping, and I concluded not to 
wake him, but left word at the office to call if Realf 
asked for me. From what the landlord told me I sup- 
posed Realf had been on a ' spree ' and I thought he did 
not care to see me until all right again. Late the ser- 
vant called and said Realf wanted 'John.' I told him 
to go to Realf and come for me if I was wanted. I 
heard nothing more. In the morning I went to his bed- 
room and found him dead and cold, leaving addressed 
to me a poem and a note explaining why he had de- 
stroyed himself. 'A woman in the case.' The poem 
was published at the time. My not seeing him the even- 
ing before was a fatal error, and I shall always regret 
it, for had I done so all would have been well; but a 
strange fatality followed him. Everything seemed to 
conspire against him. I found he had purchased at two 
different drug stores poisons, deadly when combined, 
otherwise considered not dangerous. He evidently 
knew just what was needed and how to get them without 
exciting alarm. You know the rest better than I can 
tell it." 

Col. Realf left by his bedside a poem in sonnet form, 
which has been republished wherever the English 
tongue is printed and spoken. He also left the testa- 
mentary paper of which I give the essential parts, with 
another personal letter addressed to Col. Tappan. The 
will is as follows: 

" Oakland, Cal., Oct. 28, 1878. 

" I, Richard Realf, poet, orator, journalist, workman, 
do hereby declare that I have deliberately accepted sui- 
cide as the only final relief from the incessant persecu- 



tions of my divorced wife. . . . My poems and the 
MS. of certain lectures to be found scattered promiscu- 
ously in my room, on the table, and in my trunk, are to 
be put in the possession of Gen. John F. Miller, who at 
his discretion will, or will not, surrender them to Col. R. 
J. Hinton, of the Post, . . . But . . she . . 
who once bore my name, and who is now in San Fran- 
cisco, must on no account be informed of the residence 
of my wife, who would be in constant danger. 
Now, God bless all, God pardon me as I pardon all. I 
love Gen. John F. Miller, Col. Tappan, Col. Hinton, Mr. 
Mariner Kent, John Finigan, E. Levy, Col. J. J. Lyon, 
and many others. 

" There is, or should be, a tied lock of hair in the 
form of a rude bracelet, lying on the bathroom window 
sill of my boarding house. I should be glad to have it 
placed around my wrist. 

Richard Realf." 

The essential portions of the letter addressed to CoL 
Tappan are given as follows: 

" Oakland, Cal., Oct. 28, 1878. 

14 On Saturday night she broke in on me at San Fran- 
cisco. I left the house, of course, but last night I went 
back after taking a dose of chloral hydrate large enough, 
I vainly thought, to give me permanent rest, and I left 
this morning before they were up, and have spent my 
last penny in purchasing some laudanum and more 
chloral that I shall use when I have finished this note. 
I desired to see you to make arrangements for repay- 
ment of my indebtedness to you. I can not compute 
what the mint owes me — my poor brain is in a whirl — 
but I know that I drew $20 in advance in the beginning 
of the month." 



Realf then stated some small sums that he was owing, 
gives Col. Tappan authority to draw the balance of his 
month's pay at the mint to settle these, and proceeds: 

" Please take charge of all my books, papers, MSS., 
and so forth, [Col. Tappan was spared that task, as 
the person from whom Realf fled had seized them imme- 
diately upon being admitted to his room by the land- 
lady]; until Gen. Miller comes to the city. Then con- 
sult with him. There should be some money in my 
poems, etc., if published in book form. I have a dearly 
beloved one . . . whose address is to be kept sacred- 
ly private from all eyes save Col. Hinton's and Gen. 
Miller's. My death will almost kill her, and my precious 
boy, but I am utterly incapable of bearing more suffer- 
ing. I wish some means could be devised of sending 
her a little money. I had hoped to have gotten her out 
here within a month. . . . On no account is the 
person calling herself my wife to be permitted to ap- 
proach my remains. I should quiver with horror, even 
in my death, at her touch. 

" I have had heavy burdens to bear, such as have set 
stronger men than I reeling into hell. I have tried to 
bear them like a man, but can endure no more. If I am 
weak and selfish, God will forgive me. Write to Gen. 
Miller at Sacramento and tell him how greatly I loved 
him. Col. Hinton is in Nevada with Senator Jones. I 
die in peace with all mankind and asking forgiveness 
for my own manifold trespasses. I do not speak 

of my love for my parents and kindred. It is too sacred. 
Good-by. God bless you." 

There remains but little more to be said. He was 
buried on the 31st of October, the services being con- 
ducted by the Grand Army comrades of Oakland and 



San Francisco. The Rev. J. K. Noble, Chaplain, offi- 
ciated. Col. J. J. Lyon, his personal friend, read the 
poet's " Swan Song," " De mortuis nisi nil bonum" The 
remains were interred in one of the highest portions of 
the Lone Mountain Cemetery, overlooking and embrac- 
ing the Golden Gate and Bay of San Francisco. The 
poet's injunction to "plant daisies at his head and at 
his feet," was not forgotten, for a little maid of four- 
teen, Miss Daisy Trueheart, was selected to meet that 
wish. After the planting of the daisies a dirge was 
played, and the death volleys fired above the grave of 
the poet — my beloved friend — Richard Realf , who at the 
time of his death was just forty-four years, four months, 
and thirteen days old. 

The Pittsburg " pursuer " remained in San Francisco 
for about a month. During that time, claiming her 
means to be exhausted, certain poems and manuscripts 
were offered for sale. Gen. John F. Miller, then in at- 
tendance on the State Constitutional Convention, in 
session at Sacramento, asked Mr. Pixley, of The Argo- 
naut, to negotiate in his own name for the purchase of 
such material as she had in possession. This Mr. Pix- 
ley did, finally offering and paying $100, taking Cathe- 
rine's receipt. General Miller refunded this amount to the 
editor. As a matter of fact, however, the material pur- 
chased was only in part surrendered, and a large scrap 
book containing some thirty poems, with the printed 
report of his finest lecture, "Battle Flashes," are still 
at Pittsburg. As will be seen in this volume I have 



collected, with some that are not included, about two 
hundred poems. I know of but one literary friend 
and admirer of Richard Realf, George S. Cothman, 
of Irvington, Indiana, who has seen her material. 
With perhaps two exceptions, I know it is not important, 
as copies of every poem but one are in my possession. 
The sale took place, and the material obtained, such as 
it was, was turned over to me. 

The effort to collect Realf s poems and other material 
relating to him has been a task involving almost 
unremitting labor and patience during the past score 
of years, and it has not even yet been fully accom- 
plished. My unfortunate friend left nothing like a 
personal collection. What was obtained from the 
" seizure" made at San Francisco, in October, 1878, by 
her to escape whose pursuit Realf committed suicide, 
were in the worst possible condition. He had published, 
however, in The Argonaut, during the few months of his 
residence on the Pacific Coast, a number of his more 
exquisite sonnets and lyrics ; none, I think, except 
"My Lady at the Window" and a portion of "Death 
and Desolation," being new at the date of publication, 
but all having been rewritten and more exquisitely fin- 
ished, as careful comparison shows. I have adopted 
The Argonaut versions as far as they go, and they include 
"Love Makes all Things Musical," and several sonnets 
selected from " Symbolism " and " Christdom," which 
in their complete form were first published in Harper's, 
The Atlantic, Scribner's, and The Independent, The por- 



tion of " Death and Desolation " referred to was printed 
the week preceding the author's suicide, and with the 
third one of the famous triplet of sonnets, found by 
the side of his deathbed, the lines are without doubt 
the last from his melodious pen and in-seeing soul. 
I have found no previous issue of or reference to 
l * My Lady at the Window," and hence have reason- 
ably concluded that The Argonaut print is the first 
publication. It may not be, for the poet, in his im- 
pecunious wanderings and struggles, was often im- 
pelled by dire necessity to doubtful procedure in the re- 
writing of his poems and the disposing of them again. 
It is probable that the failure of William Cullen Bryant 
to take any notice of the strangely pathetic appeal Realf 
addressed to him early in 1878 may have been due to 
the fact that as editor of the New York Evening Post 
he found that the poet had formerly sent it two or 
three poems previously published, doubtless receiving 
pay for the same. Besides The Argonaut, the original 
publications in Harper's Monthly and Weekly, The 
Atlantic, Scribner's, The Independent, and Christian Union, 
with the consent of their publishers, have been drawn 
upon for copy. But the larger number of republications, 
and the wide reach of the same, has made the editorial 
labor of gathering, comparison and revision, a difficult 
task. 

There are two small MS. volumes in my possession, 
one prepared by the poet for his sister Sarah, and the 
other for a friend of his earliest New York days. None 



of the poems they contain were written later than 1857, 
and all apparently were composed between the spring of 
that year and the early months of 1855. There are a 
few duplications in both volumes, and the number of 
poems and sonnets in both is some fifty in all. I have 
learned of another and larger volume prepared in South 
Carolina in 1869, but have never been able to see it. 
This manuscript was atone time in possession of Realf 's 
Nemesis, who is reported to have torn and mutilated it. 
Several poems are apparently lost by this process, but 
the rest have been traced and are embraced in this 
volume. 

The boyhood poems of Realf , so prematurely published 
in 1853, when the poet was in his seventeenth year, are 
not, with two exceptions, included in the present collec- 
tion. The two referred to are entitled " Nobility" and 
" A Man to His Word," and they were selected as the 
most mature and musical. There are several in 
" Guesses of the Beautiful," which seem the foundation 
for later poems. One, entitled " The Sword Song," 
being a plea for peace, is the reverse in expression of 
the martial lyric which so vigorously touched the tenor 
note of war. Yet there are lines in the boy's produc- 
tion that indicate the spirit which animates the war 
lyric. Realf's poetic nature, like the genius of Rous- 
seau, was, as John Morley so admirably puts it, of the 
'kind in which the elements of character remain mute, 
futile and dispersive particles, until compelled into unity 
by the creative shock of feminine influences." Realf 



felt this more than Jean Jacques did, in its most agree- 
able form. Far more than by his faults or follies, must 
the influence of woman upon him be judged. I have 
been in possession of hundreds of his letters. In no 
one of them have I ever seen an unclean word or un- 
wholesome suggestion. A pathetic tenderness is a pre- 
vailing and purely personal trait. The passional expres- 
sion, whenever perceptible, is held in restraint by the 
cleanest of poetic illustration. He certainly had the pla- 
tonic faculty in a large degree. Children all loved him. 
Old persons were drawn strongly to his side. Virile men 
were all kind to him, and no women, but one, has 
spoken of his memory otherwise. 

If the genius of the poet is to be counted as the 
real "me" of Richard Realf, then it must be acknowl- 
edged, and without stint, that he nobly bore all the woe- 
degrading consequences of his weakling acts. For it is 
certain that as his daily and objective life became more 
and more subject to a savage pursuit and fierce jeal- 
ousy, the soul of the singer rose to nobler and loftier 
height of expression, to more esoteric vision, and went 
down to more sacred depths of feeling. 

The poems of 1854 and of the early winter of 1855, 
that are preserved, are nearly all of an affectionate 
nature, called forth by gratitude and friendship, or the 
feeling his departure for America aroused. After his 
arrival in New York and direct residence in the Five 
Points House of Industry, the love-nature manifested 
itself in broad human expression. In this period of 



about eighteen months are found such poems as " The 
Outcast," " Mother Love," " Magdalena," "The Seam- 
stress," and others that show the influence of Hood and 
Mackey, yet rise rapidly to power and originality that 
are all his own. The first poem published in America 
was one addressed " To England." It is a piece of fierce 
objurgation and invective on the French Alliance and 
the Crimean War. It is written in the resonant and 
heroic Alexandrian measure, and attracted wide atten- 
tion. Most of the poems published by Realf during his 
work and residence in the Five Points House were 
printed in the pages of the New York Mirror, a literary 
weekly edited by Hiram Fuller. These include the 
poems called forth by the peculiar influences of his 
daily work, and by the dawn of a new passion which 
had much to do with fusing and molding his immediate 
future. The " H. B." or "Harriet," to whom several 
sonnets and exquisite lyrics are addressed, was the 
brilliant daughter of a family quite famous in the anti- 
slavery agitation. She was, I am informed, a niece of 
Charles Burleigh. The poem "I Remember," after- 
wards re-written and published at Pittsburg in the early 
seventies, was of this episode. Another one entitled 
"Two," was originally written at this time, but as re- 
written and addressed belongs naturally to the closing 
year of his life, and marks his apprehension of the pur- 
ity and fidelity of one of the sweetest friendships with 
which even he was endowed. 

Realf wrote also a considerable amount of prose mat^ 



ter, generally in connection with the reform work of the 
Rev. Mr. Pease. I have not made strenuous endeavor 
to collect such materials, for his prose writings are even 
more widely scattered than his poems were. He pre- 
pared and delivered some lectures. One on " Poetry 
and Labor" attracted attention, and through it I first 
met the poet, being at the time Vice-President of a 
Young Men's Temperance and Literary Club, which 
met weekly in Botanic Hall, New York, as I have 
already mentioned. I was commissioned during the 
late fall of 1855 to ask Realf to deliver this lecture, and 
the interview that arose there began an intimacy which 
continued till Realf s death. It has been continued ever 
since, and even more intimately on my part, as I have 
for eighteen years past continuously followed the sad 
footsteps and deeply shadowed life of my gifted friend. 

A notable example of Realf's intellectual growth is 
seen in the poem which closes the collection — " We all 
do carve our statues evermore." It was written for and 
delivered as a commencement address at an academy, 
Warnersville, New York, in June, 1855. My copy came 
from the manuscript volume of a Dr. Smith, of New 
York City and Elberon, New Jersey. 

In Kansas, his arrival early in October, 1856, was 
immediately marked by the writing of the " Defense of 
Lawrence," a forceful lyric, which at once, from its 
melodiousness and vivid, original illustrations, as well 
historical significance, attracted attention. It has re- 
mained one of the favorites with Realf's admirers. 



The poet left Kansas for New York, in January, 1857, 
and remained in the East until the last of April. Dur- 
ing the winter months of 1857 his muse was prolific. 
Among the finer sonnets of the period that have been 
preserved are the two, " In Peril," addressed to Mrs. 
Hyatt; two under the title of M Passion " and " Silence/* 
afterward re-written; "In a Scrap Book," and to his 
artist, Frank B. Carpenter; others to "An English 

Friend," to " Mrs. M ," two to " Miss H B.," 

one to " Thaddeus Hyatt." Of the same period will be 
found the vigorous descriptive poem illustrating the 
Inauguration of James Buchanan, March 4th, 1857. 

Under the title of "Free State Lyrics," Realf wrote 
and sent to Kansas from New York a series of seven 
vigorous anti-slavery poems. There are also a couple 
of political "skits," which, having purely local force, 
it was deemed unnecessary to incorporate here, though 
they show his lightness of touch. In another vein 
is a later poem, also excluded, directed against Wendell 
Phillips, at the time of the latter's first delivery, in 1866, 
of his once famous oration, "The South Victorious," 
which excited the northern mind by its trenchant and 
sarcastic review of the political situation then existing. 
As an example of the sarcastic personal tone, these two 
stanzas will be of interest: 

" I only of the sons of men 

Am chosen by the Creator; 
My voice alone is Truth — my pen 
The only revelator; 



Alone of all I look with eyes 

Serene and analytic, 
I — Phillips — the destroyer of lies, 

God's consecrated critic. 

" What Moses was to Israel, 

Priest — leader — intercessor, 
Deliverer from the jaws of hell, 

And from the stout oppressor, 
Such to this godless age am I, 

Throned loftily above it, 
Sole climber of its Sinai, 

Like to the ancient prophet." 

The lyric, "A Tress of Hair," relates to the twined 
bracelet of blonde hair found on his arm when dead, 
which is fairly presumed to have been a sad souvenir of 
the earliest incident of his love-life. It is believed to 
have been a tress cut from the locks of Miss Noel. The 
series known as the "Free State Lyrics" were, with 
some others, published in the Kansas News, of Emporia, 
in the spring and summer of 1857. 

Realf's residence in the South from September, 1858, 
to January, i860, offers no poetic flotsam or jetsam to 
my industrious search. Statements have been made 
that he wrote, during the period of mysticism which 
landed him temporarily within the folds of the Catholic 
Church, some poems of a rapt religious tone. I have 
not been able to procure copies of these, but The Cath- 
olic Standard, of New Orleans, is reported to have 
been the medium of their publication. The paper long 
since ceased issue, and no trace of files or editors has 



been available. Nor are there any fugitive verses 
found, after he left the Jesuit College in October, 
1858, during the months of his wandering and lecturing 
in Alabama and Texas. The first poem between Spring- 
dale, 1858, and Cleveland, i860, besides the two sonnets 
mentioned, is the one denunciatory of the Heenan- 
Sayres prize fight, published in Garrison's "Liberator" 
during April, i860. The long months spent among the 
Ohio Shakers the same year, brought no poems for pub- 
lication, and not until after the attack in the streets of 
Baltimore, April 19, 1861, does the name of Richard 
Realf appear in print, at least as far as I can trace 
him. "Apocalypse " is the earliest of his striking series 
of war poems, and " My Sword Song," published in the 
Chicago Tribune late in the fall of 1862, was the next by 
which he can be known. 

Then followed, during the breathing spells of military 
activity, two fine poems to Abraham Lincoln, "A Sol- 
dier's Psalm of Women," published in the Continental^ 
(N. Y.) June, 1864, and " Io Triumphe," a superb and 
ringing outburst. The sonnets of the war period include 
three superb ones dedicated to Abraham Lincoln, two 
to "A lady who chides him for not writing," (Mrs. 
Cramer, of Chicago), and another to the same after 
she wrote of her infirmity of deafness. The sonnet 
" Vates," written to General Lytle, author of " I am Dy- 
ing, Egypt, Dying," is one of his most widely known ef- 
forts, owing largely to the tragic circumstances following 
its writing. Realf was in the brigade commanded by Gen- 




4 



C1X 



eral Lytle, serving as a non-commissioned officer. Both 
met as such when duty permitted, and became warm 
friends. During the forward movement which closed 
for the time in the occupancy of Chattanooga and the 
great battle of Chickamauga, General Lytle made a 
speech at Bridgport, Alabama. " Vates " illustrates its 
effect on Realf , and expresses also the admiration he 
felt. The MS. of the sonnet was in the General's vest 
pocket, and was penetrated by the bullet that killed 
him during the early morning hours of September 20, 
1863, when directly in front of the regiment of which 
Realf was sergeant-major. It was the second day of 
the Chickamauga fighting. The sonnet and a MS. copy 
of "My Sword Song," were soaked red with Lytle's 
blood. Another poem, personal in character, beginning, 
" Not a faultless seeming face," was addressed to some 
lady correspondent who sent the soldier her photograph. 
It was probably Miss May J. Jordan, as 1 received from 
her the portrait of Realf in fatigue dress which is found in 
this volume. Mention has been made of an Ode to 
President Lincoln, written and published at Nashville im- 
mediately after the assassination, but I have never been 
able to trace it or to find a copy. " Io Triumphe " was 
evoked by the surrender at Appomattox, and " Emanci- 
pation " followed the memorable 1st of July, 1863. 
These poems were published in Harper' sand the Atlantic 
monthlies, or in the Harper 's Weekly and the Independent, 
He does not seem to have directly addressed any poems 
to his future wife, Miss Graves, except an early version 



of " Love Makes All Things Musical;" but was in the 
habit, as she wrote me, of forwarding manuscript copies 
of all he sent for publication. 

The period following his mustering out of the 88th 
Illinois, in June, 1865, and his renewal of service in the 
colored troops and southern reconstruction duty, up to 
the date of his leaving Vicksburg as a citizen again, in 
March, 1866, was fruitful in a number of fine and virile 
lyrics, most of them, however, touching on dominant 
topics of the day. During the summer of 1865, " Hash- 
eesh," — certainly one of his most remarkable poems, 
one in which he touched the deepest of esoteric mean- 
ings, — was written. One thinks of Joaquin Miller's 
reference to Burns, in reading it, as "one who knelt a 
stranger at his own hearth, seeing all, yet unseen, 
alone." He began also at this time what was designed 
to be a long and sustained poem, but a fragment of 
which has been preserved. 

Realf's prose is as marked in its rhetorical power and 
finish as are his poems for their rythm, melody, deep 
insight, andoftime spiritual grandeur. He was gifted 
as an orator, and his prose had much of the swing, 
affluence, and passion of his fervid speech. Yet, as an 
editorial writer, he became recognized for terse, direct 
power, epigrammatic capacity and grasp, homely illus- 
trative faculty, and a sharp, logical grip on facts and 
statements. 

His war letters, however, are to me the most attract- 
ive and valuable of his prose. There remains in my 



possession material sufficient to make another volume, 
which would be an effective prose contribution to current 
American literature. His lectures and orations were 
almost overpowering in their eloquent tension and gradu- 
ated power. His voice was an exquisite tenor, deep- 
ening to a light baritone. It was the organ of an orator, 
the timbre fine, and the tones musical and well modu- 
lated. 

Richard Realf looked like the traditional poet — even 
to the day of his death. His handsome head, face, and 
body were a fit receptacle for his handsome soul and 
brilliant mind. Short of stature, being not over five 
feet five in height, he was very boyish looking when I 
first met him in November, 1855. Time dims memories; 
yet, though forty-three years have passed, I still remem- 
ber the figure that passed into my life as that of a beau- 
tiful Greek, an Apollo that Phidias would have chiseled 
into immortal marble. The young form was slight 
and graceful, though not weak, hands and feet small 
and perfectly formed. The rounded, perfectly shaped 
head, sat well on a fitly proportioned neck. I recall the 
ensemble: brown, wavy, and plentiful hair, a slight, 
silky moustache, a broad, white forehead, perfectly 
shaped face and features. His eyes were a fine hazel, 
deepening to a dark brown, or lightening to a keen 
gray, his nose well-shaped, broad at the root ; finely 
penciled, arched eyebrows and a rounded, sensuous chin 
completed the handsome face of Richard Realf. 

What thing more remains to be said of Richard Realf. 



Intellectually and spiritually, judging of him as a true 
poet, whatsoever had been the failures of his objective 
life, he remained true to his finest moods and subject- 
ive ideals. His own measure of himself, as the Poet, 
may, perhaps, be found in the following sonnet, written 
early in his Pittsburg days, and entitled by him 

THE SINGER. 

O high, impalpable spirit of Song which dost 

Yield only, evermore, most palpable pain, 
It is so hard and bitter that I must 

To all thy silent scantities attain, 
And not thy sweet serenities; so hard 

To wear thy keen revealing crowns, which prick 
Till the brows quiver, and to be debarred 

Thy kisses, which thrill also to the quick, 
Cleansing our lips for singing. But I am 

Even in dumb paths renunciative content: 
Content beneath thy solemn oriflamme, 

Albeit thou treadest not the hard ascent 
With me, since only from such dimmest height 
Can man conjecture of God's Infinite! 



cxni 



POEMS 



SONNETS 



SYMBOLISMS 

ALL round us lie the awful sacrednesses 
Of babes and cradles, graves and hoary hairs; 

Of girlish laughters and of manly cares; 
Of moaning sighs and passionate caresses; 

Of infinite ascensions of the soul, 
And wild hyena-hungers of the flesh; 

Of cottage virtues and the solemn roll 
Of populous cities' thunder, and the fresh, 

Warm faith of childhood, sweet as mignonette 
Amid Doubt's bitter herbage, and the dear 

Re-glimpses of the early stars which set 
Down the blue skies of our lost hemisphere, 

And all the consecrations and delights 

Woven in the texture of the days and nights. 

The daily miracle of Life goes on 

Within our chambers, at the household hearths. 

In sober duties and in jocund mirths; 
In all the unquiet hopes and fears that run 

Out of our hearts along the edges of 



Symbolisms 

The terrible abysses; in the calms 

Of friendship, in the ecstacies of love*, 

In burial-dirges and in marriage-psalms; 
In all the far weird voices that we hear; 

In all the mystic visions we behold; 

In our souls' summers when the days are clear; 

And in our winters when the nights are cold, 
And in the subtle secrets of our breath, 
And that Annunciation men call death. 

O Earth! thou hast not any wind that blows 
Which is not music: every weed of thine 
Pressed rightly flows in aromatic wine; 

And every humble hedgerow flower that grows, 
And every little brown bird that doth sing, 

Hath something greater than itself, and bears 
A living Word to every living thing, 

Albeit it hold the Message unawares. 

All shapes and sounds have something which is not 

Of them: a Spirit broods amid the grass; 
Vague outlines of the Everlasting Thought 

Lie in the melting shadows as they pass; 
The touch of an Eternal Presence thrills 
The fringes of the sunsets and the hills. 

For ever, through the world's material forms, 
Heaven shoots its immaterial; night and day 



Symbolisms 

Apocalyptic intimations stray 
Across the rifts of matter; viewless arms 

Lean lovingly toward us from the air; 
There is a breathing marvel in the sea; 

The sapphire foreheads of the mountains wear 
A light within light which ensymbols the 

Unutterable Beauty and Perfection 
That, with immeasurable strivings, strives 

Through bodied form and sensuous indirection 
To hint into our dull and hardened lives 

(Poor lives, that can not see nor hear aright!) 

The bodiless glories which are out of sight. 



Sometimes (we know not how, nor why, nor whence) 
The twitter of the swallows' neath the eaves, 
The shimmer of the light among the leaves, 

"Will strike up through the thick roofs of our sense, 
And show us things which seers and sages saw 

In the gray earth's green dawn: something doth stir 
Like organ-hymns within us, and doth awe 

Our pulses into listening, and confer 
Burdens of Being on us; and we ache 

With weights of Revelation, and our ears 
Hear voices from the Infinite that take 

The hushed soul captive, and the saddening years 
Seem built on pillared joys, and overhead 
Vast dove-like wings that arch the world are spread. 



Insufficiency 

He, by such raptnesses and intuitions, 

Doth pledge his utmost immortality 

Unto our mortal insufficiency, 
Fettered in grossness, that these sensual prisons, 

Against whose bars we beat so tired wings, 
Avail not to ward off the clear access 

Of His high heralds and interpretings; 
Wherefore, albeit we may not fully guess 

The meaning of the wonder, let us keep 
Clean channels for the instincts which respond 

To the Unutterable Sanctities that sweep 
Down the far reaches of the strange Beyond, 

Whose mystery strikes the spirit into fever, 

And haunts, and hurts, and blesses us for ever. 



INSUFFICIENCY 



OTHAT some Poet, with awed lips on fire 
Of the Ineffable Altars, would arise, 
And with his consecrated songs baptize 
Our souls in harmony, that we might acquire 

Insight into the essential heart of Life, 
Beating with rythmic pulses. There is lost, 
In the gross echoes of our brawling strife, 

6 



Insufficiency 

Music more rare than that which did accost 
Shakspeare's Imagination, when it swept 

Nearest the Infinite. Our spirits are 
All out of tune; our discords intercept 

The strains which, like the singing of a star, 
Stream downward from the Holies, to attest, 
Beyond our jarring restlessnesses, Rest. 



I think our ideal aims will still elude 

Our eager wishes — that we still shall miss 
The elemental blessedness which is 

Incorporate somewhere in our humanhood — 
That still the unsolved riddles of the Sphinx 

Will vex us with an inward agony — 

That still within our daily meats and drinks 

Will lurk an unknown poison, until we 

Learn more of reverence for the Soul of Man! 

O friends, I fear we do but desecrate 
The sanctity of Being — do but fan 

The cruel fires of slowly-dying Hate, 
Instead of kindling hero-lives to dare 
Greatly for Man's hope against Man's despair. 



Our plummets are too short to fathom well 
The deep things of existence. Unto pride 



Insufficiency 

And unto bitterness it is denied 
To know the sacred temples wherein dwell 

The oracles and angels. We want first, 
For the interpretation of the land, 

Love, whereby Faith, the seer of Truth, is nursed; 
And Sympathy, by which to understand 

The faces of our fellows. What we need 
Is dew on our dry natures — sustenance 

For the starved spirit — not the outward greed. 
We lean too much on palpable circumstance, 

Too little on impalpable souls, to attain 

God's morrows for our yesterdays of pain. 

IV. 

We want more depth, more sweetness, less reliance 

On visible forms and ceremonial laws; 

Less venomous jeering, at the ingrained flaws 
Which mar our brother's beauty; less defiance, 

Less clannish spite, less airy sciolism, 
Less incense burned at worldly altars, less 

Chuckling, less supercilious criticism; 
More warmth, more meekness, and true lowliness, 

More human moisture in our lives, more smell 
Of flowers about our gardens, better sense 

That something worthy and acceptable 
May lie beyond the walls with which we fence 

Our isolation round; excluding thus 

The high ones who would fain have speech of us. 

8 



Insufficiency 



It is not by repressions and restraints 

Men are withheld from imminent damnation, 

But by the spiritual affiliation 
Of love with love. Our vehemence acquaints 

Heaven with our weakness, chiefly. O, we must 
Lower our proud voices, front less haughtily 

The inexorable years; learn ampler trust 
In God's child, Man, with God's eternity 

Standing behind him, before we may quell 
Our riotous devils strongly, or drown out 

The conflagrations which are lit of hell; 
Or, panoplied in wisdom, put to rout 

The insurrectionary ranks of lies 

Which hang like murder on our best emprise. 

VI. 

Lo, this is Christdom! This same blessed earth, 
From its clear coronals of the air we breathe, 
Down to the primal granite underneath 

Its mountains, hath had very notable birth 
Out of Judaic insufficiency. 

But what are we but unbelieving men, 
Who put not Christ in our philosophy, 

And only call our brothers bretheren 

On Sabbaths merely ? Tooth for tooth is good, 



Insufficiency 

We think on week-days — the old rigor that 
With literal eye for eye and blood for blood, 

Through all the centuries striveth to tread flat 
The immemorial hill from which alone 
We dare lift steady eyes to the unknown. 



What shall we say then ? — That our brother's crimes 

Augur our own diseases ; £hat his hurts 

Imply our shames; that the same bond engirts 
Alike the man who lapses and who climbs; 

That formulas and credos, when divorced 
From the great spirit of all-pervading ruth.. 

Leave still the lean and thirsty world athirst 
For the deep heart and blessedness of truth; — 

That in the noblest there is something base 
And in the meanest noble; that behind 

The sensual darkness of the human face 
Not to be quenched by any adverse wind, 

Enough of God's light flickers for a sign 

That our best possible is His divine. 

VIII. 

Here's room for poets! Here is ground for seers! — 
Broad leagues of acres waiting for the seed 
Whose recompensing sheaves of song shall breed, 

Within the bosom of the garnering years, 
Harvests of prodigal plenty. O ye lips, 

10 



My Slain 

Anointed for the proper utterance 

Of what things lie in worthy fellowships! 

O eyes to which the dread significance 
Of life's grand mystery is visible! 

For lack of ye the poor earth perishes — 
The patient earth, so very beautiful; 

The comely earth, so clung with noble stress; 
Aching for God unutterably, and wet 
With most immortal tears and bloody sweat. 



MY SLAIN 

THIS sweet child which hath climbed upon my knee, 
This amber-haired, four-summered little maid, 
With her unconscious beauty troubleth me, 

With her low prattle maketh me afraid. 
Ah, darling! when you cling and nestle so, 

You hurt me, tho you do not see me cry, 

Nor hear the weariness with which I sigh 
For the dear babe I killed so long ago. 
I tremble at the touch of your caress; 

I am not worthy of your innocent faith, 
I who, with whetted knives of worldliness 

Did put my own child-heartedness to death — 
Beside whose grave I pace forever more, 
Like desolation on a ship-wrecked shore. 



My Slain 

There is no little child within me now, 

To sing back to the thrushes, to leap up 
When June winds kiss me, when an apple bough 

Laughs into blossom, or a buttercup 
Plays with the sunshine, or a violet 

Dances in the glad dew — alas! alas! 

The meaning of the daisies in the grass 
I have forgotten; and if my cheeks are wet, 
It is not with the blitheness of a child, 

But with the bitter sorrow of sad years. 
O moaning life with life irreconciled! 

O backward-looking thought! O pain! O tears! 
For us there is not any silver sound 
Of rhythmic wonder springing from the ground. 

Woe worth the knowledge and the bookish lore 

Which makes men mummies; weighs out every grain 

Of that which was miraculous before, 

And sneers the heart down with the scoffing brain. 

Woe worth the peering, analytic days 
That dry the tender juices in the breast, 
And put the thunders of the Lord to test 

So that no marvel must be, and no praise, 
Nor any God except Necessity. 

What can you give my poor starved life in lieu 
Of this dead cherub which I slew for ye? 

Take back your doubtful wisdom, and renew 
My early foolish freshness of the dunce, 
Whose simple instinct guessed the heavens at once. 
12 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN— 1863 



IT touches to the quick the spirit of one 
Who knows what Freedom is; whose eyes have seen 
The crops thou sowest ripen in the sun; 

Whose feet have trod the fields wherein men glean 
The harvests of thy lonely hours, when thou 

Didst grapple with the Incarnate Insolence 

Lording the Land with impious pretense, 
And very bravely on its arrogant brow 

Didst set thy sealed abhorrence — when he hears 
The glib invectives which men launch at thee, 

Beloved of Peoples, crowned in all thy years 
Nestor of all our chiefs of Liberty, 

As if thou wert some devil of crafty spell 

Let loose to lure the unwary unto hell. 

11. 
But thou art wiser; thy clear spiritual sense 

Threading our tangled darkness, seest how 
The equilibriums of Omnipotence 

Poise the big worlds in safety. Disavow 
And jeer thee as men will, stab, howl, and curse, 

They can not blur the glory of thy fame, 

Nor pluck the noble memories of thy name 

13 



Abraham Lincoln — 1863 

From the glad keeping of the Universe, 

Quickened with the conjunction of thy Spirit. 

For lo! thou art Our's alone — and yet thou art 
Nature's, Mankind's, the Age's! We inherit 

Joint treasures from thee; but we stand apart 
From all the earth in bitter trespasses 
' Gainst thee and thy great throb of tenderness. 

in. 

Nathless, let not our cold ingratitude 

Make sad the soul within thee: in the years 

When the full meanings of our brotherhood 
Roll their high revelations round the spheres, 

The solemn passion of thy life shall be 
A wonder and a worship unto all, 
Whose eyes behold the Apocalyptical 

Transfiguration of Humanity. 

Meanwhile, because thy recompense is pain, 

Weary not thou; invisible lips shall kiss 

The trouble from thy heart and from thy brain, 

In all the days of thy self-sacrifice, 

Thy blessed hurts being still thy amplest wage, 
Thou Archimedes of Love's leverage. 



14 



TO A LADY AFFLICTED WITH DEAF- 
NESS 

WHY what a sweet and sacred recompense, 
Dear friend, doth reinforce thy meagre loss! 
Because, allbeit upon thy outward sense 

Fainter than naked feet on woodland moss, 
The blessed sounds of the blessed world do fall, 
The fine ear of the soul is so intense 
With its quick nerve, thou apprehendest all 

The multitudinous voices which arise 
From the singing earth unto the seeing stars — 

Its low sad minors, its triumphant cries, 
The lusty shouting of its conquerors, 

The slaves' hushed wail, the tender mother's sighs: 
Through all, thy listening spiritual instincts hark 
God luring his poor children from the dark. 



IN PERIL 



BECAUSE of the bleak anguish of her cry. 
When our two natures tore themselves apart, 
Like a hell-horror crashing through my heart, 
Wiping God's stars from out his purple sky, 
I think I can the better testify 

15 



In Peril 

Unto the terrible smiting stroke which clave 
Thro' the fine fibers of your delicate brain, 
When, with your lashes trickling drops of rain, 

For the last time your shivering lips you gave 
To his, for kisses and for comfortings. 
O deep, deep woman heart! O coiling pain 

Of blackened silence, leaden as the grave; 
O weary stricken dove, O drooping wings, 
Christ hold thee in thy dark of shudderings. 



Be strong — be strong! I think that He who held 

His Son's soul in his Soul's Gethsemane, 
Who smote the royal first-born, and compelled 

The maddened waters of the moaning sea 

To crouch in awe at his prophetic knee, 
And harnessed his own fiery cloud of stars, 

To march before his chosen humanity — 
I say I think the sweep of scimetars 

He will ward off from him who loveth thee. 
O many limbs must yawn with ghastly scars 

Before a godless hand may ever touch 
This Moses of an Israel that is free. 

Therefore — O trembler! grieve not overmuch 
For him who yet shall clasp thee tenderly. 



16 



LOVE'S MARVEL 

I THINK that Love makes all things musical, 
As, melted in the marvels of its breaths, 

Our barren lives to blossoming lyrics swell, 

And the new births shine upward from old deaths, 

Witching the world with wonder. Thus to-day- 
Watching the crowding people in the street, 
I thought the ebbing and the flowing feet 

Moved to a delicate sense of rhythm alway, 

And that I heard the yearning faces say, 

" Soul, sing me this new song! " The Autumn leaves 

Throbbed subtly to me an immortal tune; 

And when a warm shower wet the roofs at noon, 
Low melodies seemed to slide down from the eaves, 

Dying delicious in a dreamy swoon. 



VIOLA'S SONG 

DO you remember how, a day ago, 
You broke into a mellow Tuscan hymn ? 
And how your spirit's passionate overflow, 
In waves of living jubilance did grow 

And greaten all around you, till the dim 
And shadowy parlor trembled to and fro 

With shining splendors, as though the cherubim 

17 



Decoration Day 

Waved their white wings above it? O, dear tones 
Of that rare singing! O, the subtle voice 

Which shook me to the marrow of my bones, 
And clenched and held me till I had no choice 

Save in bowed reverence to follow it 

Along its starry pathway — thrilled and lit 
With radiance of far incandescent thrones. 



DECORATION DAY 

THANK God for Liberty's dear slain; they give 
Perpetual consecration unto it, 
Quick'ning the clay of our insensitive 

Dull natures with the awe of infinite,. 

Sun-crowned transfiguration, such as fit 
On the solemn-brooding mountains. O, the dead, 

How they do shame the living; how they warn 
Our little lives that huckster for the bread 

Of peace, and tremble at the world's poor scorn, 
To pick their steps among the flowers, and tread 

Daintily soft where the raised idols are, 
Prone with gross dalliance where the feasts are spread, 

When most they should strive forth, and flash afar 

Light, like the streaming of heroic war. 



18 



PATIENCE 

THE swift years bring but slow development 
Of the worlds majestic; for Freedom is 
Born grandly orb'd, as a solid continent, 

Layer upon layer, from chaos and the abyss, 
Shoulders its awful granite to the light, 

Building the eternal mountains, on whose crests, 

Pinnacled in the intense sapphire, rests 
The brooding calmness of the Infinite. 

But we, whirled round and round in heated gusts 
Of eager indignation, think to weigh 

Against God's patience our gross griefs and lusts 
Like foolish Jonah before Nineveh 

(O world-wide symbol of his vanished gourd!) 

Expostulating gravely with the Lord. 



PASSION 

1 CLENCH my arms about your neck, until 
The knuckles of my hands grow white with pain, 
And my swollen muscles quiver with the strain, 
And all the pulses of my life stand still. 

I say I clench so. Ah! you can not tear 
Yourself away from my immortal grip 
Of forlorn tenderness and salt despair, 

19 



Silence Still 

And child-like sorrowing after fellowship, 

And wolf-like hunger of the famishing heart; 
For not until my sundering fibers crack, 

And my torn limbs from their wrenched sockets start, 
O darling, darling! will I yield me back 

To that lone hell whence, shuddering through and 
through, 

With one wild tiger-leap I sprang to you. 



SILENCE STILL 

BUT do not heed my trembling; do not shrink 
Because my face is haggard, and my eyes 
Blaze hot with thirstiness as they would drink 

Your wells up to their ultimate supplies. 
I will not hurt you, darling! I will be 

More tender than our Mothers were to us 
In our first days of helpless infancy. — 

And if I kiss you thus, and thus, and thus; 
And fling toward you — so — and make you wreathe 
Nigher and nigher, until you can not breathe 

Save by my sufferance, — I will not wet 
Your dead white forehead with a single stain 
(I will watch so) from all the purple rain 

Of my great agony and bloody sweat. 

20 



A YEAR AGO 



A YEAR ago two thin and delicate hands 
Trembled within my passionate parting clasp, 
Two dreamy eyes seemed spiritual overmuch, 
And one white brow my hot lips loved to touch, 
Burned as if belted by the securing bonds 
That crown our crowns of sorrow. Then she spoke: 
" God keep you " — but a sudden shivering gasp 
Splintered the rest to silence with one stroke. 
O, t'was well feigned! the exquisite, audible sign, 
The mute beseeching of the bloodless lips 
The paleness reaching to the ringer tips, 
And the deep, mournful splendor of the eye. 
God! but her rare skill smote me as a cry 
Of those who perish amid sinking ships. 



Now, let this pass! O, woman, there shall come 
In the deep midnights, when thy pulses throb, 
And something startles thee like a low sob, 
A shining grandeur that shall strike thee dumb — 
The glory of a great white martyrdom! 
And nothing save the old clock on the wall, 
Whose strokes shall crash like awful thunder then, 
Shall answer thee when thou shalt wildly call 

21 



David Swing 

On the strange past to speak to thee again 

With one voice more! but thou shalt grope and crawl 

Along wet burial crypts, and thy large tears, 

Scorched with the heat of thy strong agony, 

Shall blister on the dead hopes of old years, 

Who shall rise up to glare and mock at thee. 



DAVID SWING 

FOR souls like thine, coined of creative fire, 
Electric with quick instincts — it is hard 
To endure the fool, the Pharisee, the liar, 

The scoffs and jeers of little lives on guard 
Against the lifting Savior; terrible 

To tread most sovran indignation down 
With still more sovran pity — to annul 

The wrong as though it were not, and to crown 
Man-hating with Christ-loving; bitter as death 
To keep calm lips closed over burning breath, 

And make the clenched fist reverence the will 
That holds the tingling fibers in restraint. 

Yet only through such pain may we fulfil 
The measure of the hero and the saint. 

Truth's self is Truth's own triumph and success. 
Therefore wait thou: Whoso hath eyes to see 

22 



David Swing 

The marvel of his everlastingness. 

Rooted in God's immutability; 
He whose true soul is reverent and wise 

To read the lesson of the Universe, 
That not in crowd nor ritualities, 

Nor the proud pomps with which men bless and Curse, 
Lie liberty and mastery, but alone 
In that ineffable Christ whom we disown, 

Needeth no human succor — for he is 
Girt all about with the Invisible. 

Wherefore, albeit thine enemies howl and hiss, 
Remain thou silent, till thine hour is full. 



Until thine hour is full. For there shall come 

A moment when, with clarified, soft eyes, 
Men shall behold thy stature, and stand dumb, 

Stricken with large and beautiful surprise. 
But this is not thy glory; the broad gaze 

Of seeing natures, the sweet sobs and shouts 
Of glad, freed thralls who in new-throbbing praise 

Do penance for the evil of old doubts — 
The home in good men's hearts, the wider faith, 
The benedictions poured along thy path, 

The prayers that run like couriers at thy side, 
The dear beliefs of childhood's innocence — 

These are as naught: that thou hast justified 
Thy soul with love, is thy soul's recompense. 

23 



IN A SCRAP BOOK 

HERE, gathered from all places and all time, 
The waifs of wisdom and of folly meet. 
High thoughts that awe and lilting words that chime 

Like Sabbath bells heard in far vallies sweet; 
Quaint fancies, musical with dainty rhyme 

Like the soft patter of an infant's feet; 
And laughter radiant as summer skies, 

The genial sunshine of the happy heart; 
And giant hopes looking out from human eyes, 

With thrilling hymns that make the quick tears start, 
Are here, in garlands of strange fantasy, 

To catch the careless passer's casual look, 

And show, within the limits of a book, 
Unto him his life's own large epitome. 



TO FRANK B. CARPENTER, Artist, 

After seeing his portrait of Henry Ward Beecher 

IT was thy soul's deep reverence earned thee this, 
And not thy painter's cunning, — the true eye, 
Bathed in the light of shining prophecy, 
To understand the spiritual influences 
Wherefrom do spring the wonderful mysteries 

24 



To an English Friend 

Of the high speech of features! Else, whence came 

The silent subtle aroma that grows 

Like the utter sweetness of a perfect rose 

To the hearts of the beholders, and the flame 

Clasping his brows with the old tenderness, 

So that once more we part our lips to bless 

The yearning face we look on, and pass forth 

Watching the glorious bountiful sun caress 

The people swarming on the rugged earth. 



TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND 

STAND still, and let me read thee as thou art! 
O, like a spiritual hearted child, who stands 
Watching a dying sunset by the sea, 
When blazing awe hath stricken his lips apart, 
And crept, like thunder, through the clenched hands 
With which he clutched at that God's prophecy, 
And missed it: so stands shivering on the sands, 
Staring his reddened eyes into the night, 
Straining his splintered heartstrings till he dies — 
So does the hunger of his famishing eyes 
Glare toward the line of overwhelming light 
That stunned thee into speechlessness; and yet 
It stands and waits in the eternities, 
To clasp thee sudden when thy cheeks are wet. 

25 



TO MRS. M , OF ENGLAND 

On the birth of her first child 

WHEN you lay shivering with the great excess 
Of mother-marvel at your child's first cry; 

When you looked up and saw him standing by, 
Leaning the strong unspeakable utterness 

Of all his soul upon you; when you smiled, 
And your weak lips strove mightily to frame 
To a new song your new life's oriflamme, 

And presently the infinite words, " Our child," 
Made a most musical murmur, as of breath 

Breathed by a poet's spirit — did you know 

The babe's slight moan, that seemed so faint and low, 
Was God's voice speaking from dear Nazareth, 

Covering you up with that white light that lay 

On Mary and her young Christ in the hay ? 



TO A LADY ON CHIDING ME FOR 
NOT WRITING 

i. 

IF still I hold my peace, and stand aloof 
From giving thee tongue-worship, it is not 
Because my nature hath grown passion proof: 
In truth I think my heart's blood is as hot 

26 



To a Lady on Chiding me for not Writing 

As when, foreseeing my spirit would else rot, 
Heaven purged me with hell's sulphur; only now, 
Leaning here, with my sword drawn, on my shield, 
Ribbed with the strokes of battle's deadliest hate, 
I have no leisure to unbend my brow 
Into the mood of sonnets! Ay, and thou — 
Though the deep song be nevermore revealed, 
And thine own anthem perish uncreate — 
Wilt deem me manlier that I do not yield 
The stern hour unto music: therefore, wait! 



Wait! it is better so. Some day, perhaps, 

The Word within may find an utterance. 

Only not now while God's great thunder-claps 

And still small voices of vast covenants 

Are talking with my soul. I must be dumb 

When Heaven speaks, and my hungry eyes do glance 

Into the deeps of Being, tho' my heart 

Break with its bursting silence. — O, dear friend, 

I surely trust the Pentecost will come, 

When these mute yearnings of my life shall start 

Into a living lyric, that shall blend 

Music with all my pulses, and ascend 

Calmly and purely the celestial hope — 

A belt of fire across my horoscope. 

27 



THE TRUTH 

THE great world grows in glory; near and far 
God's blinding splendors blaze upon our eyes; 

And thunders, as of newer Sinais, 

Crash triple grandeurs of deep prophecies; 
And large loves, white as Christ's own Angels are, 

Fling shining sweetnesses on all the spheres; 
And calm vast hymns, high as the morning star, 

Throb throneward from the green isles of the seas. 
Yea, all the days are as a Mother's tears — 

Brimfull with unsaid meanings. Therefore now 
I will stretch forth my yearning hands to seize 

The luminous Truth, which, girdled on my brow, 
Shall fringe my soul with naming sanctities, 

The early promise of an ancient vow. 



TO MISS H B- 



I HAVE been homeless such a weary while; 
Have lived so long upon Love's scattered crumbs, 
Strewn in the outer alleys of the world; 
My naked heart has been so dashed and whirled 
From side to side in bitter martyrdoms, 
Made all the bitterer by the lean, sad smile 

28 



To Miss H B 

Shivering upon my lips, that this new feast 
Whereto I am bidden as chief banqueter, 
And whereat, though my speech be of the least, 
I may bend on her my great, greedy eyes, 
Walk by her side, a reverent listener — 
Silent, 'till all my own soul's silences 

Burst into blossoming music: 'tis too deep, 
Too very blessed! Heart — be still and weep. 



I held her name between me and the sun 

And then I staggered downward to my knees; 

O, blessed Christ! how my brain reeled and spun 
When, like a flash from the Eternities, 

The blinding blaze of burning glory clung 
Around the luminous letters, till the name 
Shot outward into breathing life, a flame 

With Godlike splendor, as a cloven tongue 

Of awful Pentecost! 

O Holiest 
Of all the holy! O, great Infinite 

Who thro' all works still workest all things best; 
I yield this name unto thee; pure and white 
Keep it, dear Father! Keep it in Thy sight — 

Keep it for me when my soul can not rest. 

29 



IN NOTRE DAME 

THEY look down from their places on the wall 
With such transfigurings in their steadfast eyes, 
You see a sweet ascending glory rise 

About their foreheads apostolical, 
And hear such wondrous spiritual replies 

From those meek lips of patient sorrow fall, 
You kneel down in the light that glorifies 

The aisles of silent worshipers, and thrill 
Beneath the anointed, soothing hand that lies 
On the moaning surge of your dark agonies 

Born of the lapses of the heart and will 

From God's high levels to man's low tracts of ill; 
And pass forth quivering with the soft surprise 

That touched you in the whisper, " Peace, be still." 



TO THADDEUS HYATT 

WHEN God spake unto Moses, and the crags 
Of Sinai shook with thunder, do you think 
The gaping Jews upon the river brink, 
Stripping the tinsel from their priestly rags 
To build them yellow idols, ever caught 

30 



Nannie's Picture 

1 Mid the loud tumult of their mummeries, 

The slightest whisper of the Eternal Thought? 

So, do you think that those who fret and fume, 
Tossed round and round in a great whirl of lies 
Can catch the meaning lying in your eyes, 

Or mark the colors of the mystic bloom 
Whose silent growth is as a rose of fire; 

Or through the rifts of dark, and mist, and gloom, 
See Godlike Love beneath your manly ire? 



NANNIE'S PICTURE 

CHILD-INSTINCT of the Holy mingles here, 
With the fine painter-cunning: heart and eye 

All steeped in seeing of the mystic sky 
Which broods above the enchanted wondersphere 

The little children walk in. Else, whence came 
The aromatic effluence that grows, 
Dear as first fragrance of a dawning rose, 

Out from the canvas — and the subtle flame 
Wreathing the dainty baby-brows with light 

Clothed with revealings of the Infinite — 
Making us part revering lips to bless 

The winsome face we look on, and pass forth, 
Watching the beatific Sun caress 

The people swarming on the happy earth ? 

31 



" VATES." 

[Written to General I^ytle, author of the poem, "Antony to 
Cleopatra," ("I am dying, Egypt, dying"), who was killed at 
Chickamauga, the bullet passing through the original manuscript 
of this sonnet. Orderly Sergeant Realf served in I^ytle's Brigade, 
and the two poets were friends.] 

VATES," I shouted, while your solemn words 
Rythmic with crowded passion, lilted past; 
" That Land which, thrilled with anguish, still affords 

Great souls all coined in one grand battle blast, 
Like this soul and this singing, shall not fail 

So much as by a hair's-breadth, of the large 
Results of affluent wisdom, whereunto 

Across the bloody gaps our blades must hold, 
And far beyond the mountain and the maze 

We pass with bruised limbs that yet shall scale 
The topmost heights of Being! Therefore, thou 

Lead on, that we may follow, for I think 

The Future hath not wherefrom we should shrink, 
Held by the steadfast shining of your brow! " 

TO R. J. H. 

1 MARKED fine crownings of a Crowning Hand 
Flush on his brooding brows: and, catching so 
The inward radiance through the outward glow, 
I know that very tranquil, deep and grand, 
Waited a power within him to withstand 
All luring shows of things that were not based 

32 



Written on the Night of His Suicide. 

On nrmamental pillars. Then I said 
I thank God reverently that amid this 
Loud whirl of eager faction He hath placed 
A far-eyed seer, calm-poised of heart and head — 
A lithe-thewed Titan with winged faiths that kiss 
The crests of difficult peaks, and tread the paths 
Where the clear-sighted walk by the abyss 
Close to diviner loves and holier wraths. 



WRITTEN ON THE NIGHT OF HIS 
SUICIDE 

J~\E mortuis nil nisi bonum." When 

"^"^^ For me this end has come and I am dead, 
And the little voluble, chattering daws of men 

Peck at me curiously, let it then be said 
By some one brave enough to speak the truth: 

Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong. 
Down all the balmy days of his fresh youth 

To his bleak, desolate noon, with sword and song, 
And speech that rushed up hotly from the heart, 

He wrought for liberty, till his own wound 
(He had been stabbed), concealed with painful art 

Through wasting years, mastered him, and he 
swooned, 
And sank there where you see him lying now 
With the word " Failure " written on his brow. 

33 



Written on the Night of His Suicide. 

But say that he succeeded. If he missed 

World's honors, and world's plaudits, and the wage 
Of the world's deft lacqueys, still his lips were kissed 

Daily by those high angels who assuage 
The thirstings of the poets — for he was 

Born unto singing — and a burthen lay 
Mightily on him, and he moaned because 

He could not rightly utter to the day 
What God taught in the night. Sometimes, nathless, 

Power fell upon him, and bright tongues of flame, 
And blessings reached him from poor souls in stress; 

And benedictions from black pits of shame, 
And little children's love, and old men's prayers, 
And a Great Hand that led him unawares. 

So he died rich. And if his eyes were blurred 

With big films — silence ! he is in his grave. 
Greatly he suffered; greatly, too, he erred; 

Yet broke his heart in trying to be brave. 
Nor did he wait till Freedom had become 

The popular shibboleth of courtier's lips; 
He smote for her when God Himself seemed dumb 

And all His arching skies were in eclipse. 
He was a-weary, but he fought his fight, 

And stood for simple manhood; and was joyed 
To see the august broadening of the light 

And new earths heaving heavenward from the void. 
He loved his fellows, and their love was sweet — 
Plant daisies at his head and at his feet. 

34 



WAR AND 

RELATED 

LYRICS 



APOCALYPSE 

Private Arthur I^add, Sixth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, 
First Martyr in the War for liberty of 1861-5. Slain in Baltimore, 
April 19, 1861. 

STRAIGHT to his heart the bullet crushed; 
Down from his breast the red blood gushed, 
And over his face a glory rushed. 



A sudden spasm shook his frame, 
And in his ears there went and came 
A sound as of devouring flame, 

Which in a moment ceased, and then 
The great light clasped his brows again, 
So that they shone like Stephen's when 

Saul stood apart a little space, 

And shook with trembling awe to trace 

God's splendors settling o'er his face. 

Thus, like a king, erect in pride, 
Raising clean hands toward heaven, he cried, 
'All hail the Stars and Stripes!" and died. 

Died grandly. But before he fell, 
(O blessedness ineffable!) 
Vision Apocalyptical 



Apocalypse 

Was granted to him, and his eyes, 
All radiant with glad surprise, 
Looked forward through the centuries, 

And saw the seed which sages cast 
On the world's soil in cycles past, 
Spring up and blossom at the last. 

Saw how the souls of men had grown, 
And where the scythes of truth had mown 
Clear space for Liberty's white throne. 

Saw how, by sorrows tried and proved, 
The blackening stains had been removed 
Forever from the land he loved. 

Saw Treason crushed, and Freedom crowned, 
And clamorous fury gagged and bound, 
Gasping its life upon the ground. 

Saw how, across his Country's slopes 
Walked swarming troops of cheerful hopes, 
Which evermore to broader scopes 

Increased, with power that comprehends 
The world's weal in its own, and bends 
Self-needs to large unselfish ends. 

38 



Apocalypse 

Saw how, throughout the vast extents 
Of earth's most populous continents 
She dropped such rare-hearted affluence, 

That from beyond the utmost seas 
The wondering people thronged to seize 
Her proffered pure benignities. 

Saw how, of all her trebled host 

Of widening empires, none might boast 

Whose love were best, or strength were most, 

Because they grew so equal there 
Beneath the flag which, debonair, 
Waved joyous in the cleansed air. 

With far off vision, gazing clear 
Beyond this gloomy atmosphere 
Which shuts us in with doubt and fear, 

He, marking how her high increase 
Ran, greatening in perpetual lease 
Through balmy years of odorous peace — 

Greeted in one transcendent cry 

Of intense passionate ecstacy, 

The sight which thrilled him utterly, 

39 



My Sword Song 

Saluting, with most proud disdain 
Of murder and of mortal pain, 
The vision which shall be again! 

So, lifted with prophetic pride, 

Raised conquering hands toward heaven and cried, 
'All hail the Stars and Stripes!" and died. 



MY SWORD SONG 

DAY in, day out, through the long campaign, 
I march in my place in the ranks; 
And whether it shine or whether it rain, 

My good sword cheerily clanks; 
It clanks and clanks in a knightly way 

Like the ring of an armored heel; 
And this is the song which day by day, 
It sings with its lips of steel: 

" O friend, from whom a hundred times, 
I have felt the strenuous grip 
Of the all-renouncing love that climbs 

To the heights of fellowship; 
Are you tired of all the weary miles ? 

Are you faint with your swooning limbs ? 
Do you hunger back for the olden smiles, 
And the lilt of olden hymns ? 
40 



My Sword Song 

11 Has your heart grown weak since that rapt hour 

When you leapt, with a single bound, 
From dreaming ease to sovereign power 

Of a living soul world-crowned ? 
Behold! the aloes of sacrifice 

Are better than radiant wine, 
And the bloody sweat of a cause like this 

Is an agony divine. 

" Under the wail of the shuddering world 

Amoan for its fallen sons; 
Over the volleying thunders hurled 

From the throats of the wrathful guns; 
Above the roar of the plunging line 

That rocks with the fury of hell, 
Runs the absolute voice: O Earth of mine, 

Be patient, for all is well! " 

Thus sings my sword to my soul, and I, 

Albeit the way is long, 
As soiled clouds darken athwart the sky — 

Still keep my spirit strong: 
Whether I live, or whether I lie 

On the stained ground, ghastly and stark, 
Beyond the carnage I shall descry 

God's love shine across the dark. 



4i 



IN BATTLE 

To Abraham I^mcoln 

O LEADER of our sacred cause, 
Twin sharer in our sadness, 
Defender of our trampled laws 

From perjured felon's madness — 
In all our stress of mortal strife, 

Our weariness and weeping, 
Our hearts thank God our country's life 
Is in thine honest keeping! 

So blithe amid the cares of state, 

So calm mid howling faction, 
Clear-souled to hasten or to wait, 

As fits the largest action: 
With joyance, like a little child's, 

Along thy grave moods straying, 
And breezes as from heather wilds 

In every cheery saying. 

God bless the reverend lips that spake 
The one grand word whose thunder 

Through all the gladdened heavens brake 
Our damned chains asunder! 

God bless the patient hand that traced 
The golden glorious pages, 

42 



Introspection 

Whereby our lost crowns are replaced 
For immemorial ages! 

We follow where thou leadest; far 

Beyond the tribulation 
That drapes these dreadful years of war, 

We see a newer nation, 
Through balmy days of greatening power, 

And nights of calm ascension, 
Expand into the perfect flower 

Of God's divine intention. 



INTROSPECTION 

[July Fourth, 1876] 

THROUGHOUT the land a glad shout runs, 
Pealed by a mighty nation; 
Flags dance, bells ring, innocuous guns 

Roar eager salutation: 
With joy the bannered cities thrill; 

Stored hearts unpack their treasures; 
Wood, stream and valley, plain and hill, 
Leap to heroic measures. 

The roused air throbs with fervor, all 
The places have blithe seeming; 

43 



Introspection 

The meeting skies hold festival, 
The sun hath brighter beaming; 

The glory of one hundred years 

Breaks in proud speech of thunder; 

And I amid the epic cheers 
Listen and brood and ponder. 

I ponder o'er the days gone by 

With their dead tribulations, 
And see the solemn future lie 

Sown thick with fresh probations, 
And hear beyond the jocund noise 

That rushes like a river, 
The still persuasion of a Voice 

Which speaks from the Forever. 

O, well-beloved land, whose fame 

All winds bear in their keeping, 
The stately music of whose name 

Far peoples are repeating, 
As if the footsteps of its sound 

By comfortings were followed, 
And smells of Freedom from the ground 

By Freedom's footsteps hallowed! 

Brave things and noble hast thou done, 
Staunch helpings for the human; 

44 



Introspection 

Hale hopes hast strewn beneath the sun 

For hopeless man and woman. 
Crowned growths of grandeur have been thine, 

And sunrise bursts of beauty, 
And hearty draughts of God-like wine 

For Man-like thirsts of duty; 

And sacrifices that have wrung 

The quick cords of existence, 
And bloody woe of pulses strung 

For battle's steeled resistance; 
And wastes where heaven, black with wraths 

Against thy coward lapses, 
And thorny search in coiling paths 

Of perilous Perhapses. 

And fit it is, and wise, and well, 

This dear commemoration 
Of winged upstrainings out from hell, 

And eras of salvation, 
To let thy ecstacies run free 

In flowing jubilances, 
And build brave odes for liberty 

And her significances. 

But thou hast victories yet to win, 
Harsh roads of pain to travel, 

45 



Introspection 

With stress without and strife within, 

Beset by beast and devil, 
Before thy bruised feet crest the heights 

That kiss the world's blue coping, 
And heaven for thee and thine ignites 

The altars of thy hoping. 

Thine affluent realms that stretch away 

From ocean unto ocean; 
Thy subtle lightnings that obey 

Thy right hand's finest motion; 
Thy ships that walk the utmost waves; 

Thy thronging sways and splendors; 
Thy consecrated household graves; 

Thine hero-eyed defenders — 

These are not thy finalities, 

They are the tools for hewing 
Thine august spiritual destinies, 

Else thine aghast undoing: 
For lo! unless the inward Soul 

Subdue the outward greatness, 
The worms of ruin sap the whole 

Foredoomed for desolateness. 

Full oft, on palace lintel-posts, 
Whereat Success stands vaunting, 

4 6 



Wanted: Joshua 

The fingers of invisible ghosts 

Write the dread verdict — Wanting! 

And though the plaudits and the praise 
Of all men rise before thee, 

Unmoved, a spirit waits always 
To mark if thou art worthy. 

Like whips, thy missed ideals urge 

Fate's hounding Nemesises; 
Like cliffs, thy breezy gardens verge 

On fathomless abysses; 
The pillared cloud may burst in doom, 

The shining wing may darken, 
The flaming guidance may consume — 

O, land beloved, hearken! 



WANTED: JOSHUA 

WHEN God, whose courtlier crowns did wait 
The forehead of our Moses, drew 
His steps where Pisgah shot up straight 

As a Seer's thought into the blue 
Of the immaculate heavens, and fed 

The life-long hunger of his eyes 
With one swift vision that struck him dead 
For awe of its sublimities: — 

47 



Wanted: Joshua 

And we turned instant unto you, 

(Calling you Joshua), to complete 
The meanings of the paths which grew 

So sharp to our unsandaled feet, 
I swear we thought the living soul 

Of that great prophet wrought afresh 
In you, like thunder, to control 

To sovereign ends our drooping flesh. 



Were not you with us when God clave 

The Red Sea, with a blow, in twain? 
Were you not of us when he gave 

Manna, and quails, and blessed rain? 
And those tall pillars which he yoked 

For service — did you see them not ? 
And all the alien blood that soaked 

The paths he hewed — is that forgot? 



When crested Sinai cracked in flame, 

And all the desert round about 
Shook with the dreadness of his Name 

Whose glory paled the sunlight out; 
Did not you tremble with the rest, 

When his imperatives blazed forth 
Along the tablets, to attest 

The Absolute unto the Earth ? 

48 



Wanted: Joshua 

Whence — when the Lord smote hip and thigh 

The Hittite and the Amelekite — 
Did you draw warrant to deny 

To him the issues of the fight ? 
By what prerogative do you 

Defraud the heavens of those results 
Which ripened when we overthrew 

Hell's battering rams and catapults? 



I think you are not Joshua, but 

Aaron art — he whose atheist hands, 
Unclean as sin with worldly smut, 

Reared, when God lightened o'er the lands, 
A poor vain idol, unto which, 

Reaching imploring arms, he caught 
A curse that burned like molten pitch, 

As symbol of his special Thought. 



Are your hands lifted toward the sun, 

What time our onsets wax and wane ? 
Do you see troops of angels run 

In shining armor o'er the plain ? 
I know not; but I know, full sooth, 

No wrath of hell, nor rage of man, 
Nor recreant servant of the Truth, 

Can balk us of our Canaan. 

49 



A BLACK MAN'S ANSWER 

WELL, if it be true, as you assert, 
That this is a land for the white man's rule, 
And not for " niggers," does that import 
That our God is the white man's fool? 

" Two peoples ? The hammers and heats of war 
Have forged and fused, like welded links, 
The fates of the twain in one; we are 
For you, the riddle of the Sphinx. 

" And you must solve us, unless again, 
Over the burning marl of woe 
Where never falleth the blessed rain, 
Hell-dragged you want to go. 

" When the scythes of slaughter swung in blood 
And fair green fields of men were mown, 
Did not our black limbs dapple the sod 
With streams as red as your own ? 

" But not for this do we look in your face, 
White man, and ask, with hungry eyes, 
My brother ! give us a little space 
To work in under the skies ! 

50 



Emancipation 

u We are not mendicants: we are Souls ! 

The soul that thrilled in Shakespeare, and 
Lit Lincoln's lips with living coals, 
Thrills us here where we stand. 

" We try to use our wings and fly; 
We try to use our limbs and run; 
Do you hold mortmain over the sky, 
Over the earth and the sun ? 

" Your apples are of Hesperides; 
You give us those of Tantalus; 
But what if the Lord should blight your trees 
And mock you as you mock us ? " 



EMANCIPATION 

THANK God, thank God, we do not flinch 
A single hair's-breadth from the way, 
Nor lose the thousandth of an inch 

Of royal manhood on this day! 
Thank God, the words are calm and strong 

And keenly tempered with the truth, 
While ringing like a battle song, 
All proud, of fiery-hearted youth! 

5i 



Emancipation 

By Heaven! it sweeps through every soul 

With its majestic, rythmic tread, 
As tho' it were the thunder-roll 

Of God's worlds marching overhead; 
So high above our petty reach 

Along the listening heights it passed, 
Brimful of burning inner speech 

As Paul when Felix stood aghast. 



Our spirits, starting from their sleep 

Into a crowned and regal mood, 
Cleave on like light across the deep 

Of silence and of solitude; 
And, with the sweat upon our brows, 

Stand strong again beside you there 
In quick acceptance of the vows, 

As from Christ's tomb white-winged were. 



O, hearts that sickened at the wrong! 

O, eyes that strained for the right! 
O, weary lives whose bitter song 

Swelled upward to the infinite! 
O! mothers waiting for your sons! 

O sons whose clenched lips never smile! 
O dreary hearts of drooping ones, 

Be patient for a little while. 

52 



How Iyong? 

For sure as God's Evangel moves 

The hidden pulses of the spheres, 
So surely do the unseen loves 

Thrill onward thro' the greatening years: 
And as we keep our loftiest faith, 

Our kingly hopes, our sacred pledge, 
The crown of truth that freedom hath 

Hangs now upon the morning's edge. 



HOW LONG? 

HOW long, O God, how long 
Must fettered Freedom writhe beneath her chains, 
And send the wailing of the captive's song 
Across the purple plains ? 

How long, O God, how long 
Shall Slavery's blood-hounds hold her by the throat, 
And her life reel beneath the dripping thong 

Of Hell's Iscariot? 

How long, O God, how long 
Shall she be haunted, homeless, thro' the Earth; 
Nor thou — Just One — against the crimson wrong, 

Launch Thy broad lightnings forth ? 

53 



How I^ong? 

O have thine eyes not seen 
With what high trust she bore her bitter shames; 
Nor marked how calm and God-like and serene 

She stood amid the flames ? 

O have thine ears not heard 
Her long low gasp of inarticulate prayer, 
When livid hate, with redly reeking sword, 

Has clutched her by the hair? 

O did'st Thou not look down 
Upon her cruel buffetings of scorn, 
And watch her temples stream beneath the crown, 

Made of the mocking thorn ? 

And dost Thou not discern 
How the fierce, pitiless rabble casteth lots 
For her white robes — alas! so rent and torn, 

And smeared with purple spots ? 

O when she held the cup, 
On those wild nights of her Gethsemane; — 
Father in Heaven, did she not still look up, 

Firm and unmoved — to Thee ? 

And when the bloody sweat 
Oozed from the blue veins of her shuddering limbs, 

54 



Rally! 

Was not the burning clasp of agony met 
With calm triumphant hymns ? 

0, if she be Thy child, 
And Thou art God, burst now this dread eclipse, 
And let her pass forth, free and undefiled, 

With Thy breath on her lips. 



RALLY ! 

Inscribed to the ex-soldiers and sailors of the Union armies and 
navies, 1872. 



O 



COMRADES, who rose in your grandeur and 
j might, 



When the land of our love was in danger, 
And Liberty girdled your loins for the fight 

As you sprang to protect and avenge her; 
O, brothers, whose tread, like the thunder of God, 

Shook city and mountain and valley — 
Once more the old bugle-notes echo abroad, 

And once more our country cries, Rally! 

Not now with the banners of battle unrolled, 
The steel-fronted ranks standing steady; 

Not now with the terrible calmness of old, 
When the guns were unlimbered and ready; 

55 



Rally! 

Not now with the heats as when columns were sped 

For bloodiest taking and giving — 
But only with Honor for all of our Dead, 

And Justice for all of our Living. 

Bring ballots, not bullets — bring spirits that burn 

With noble and knightly endeavor, 
To keep our bright harvests of Progress unshorn 

By a sheaf, of their fullness forever. 
Bring love that can pardon the sorrowful past, 

Bring hopes that are broad as our border; 
But bring the old Manhood which, unto the last, 

Stood Alp-like for Union and Order! 

We fought, and we conquered — they fought, and they 
fell — 

And Freedom arose in her beauty; 
But our swords were not edged with the rancors of hell — 

They were sharpened for Country and Duty. 
The sternest and swiftest when armies are launched, 

And the onset of daring is shouted, 
Are tender as women when wounds should be staunched 

For the broken and ruined and routed. 

We cherish no hatreds — our breath is as sweet 

As the smell of the midsummer clover; 
When the arms of our foemen were stacked at our feet, 

That moment our anger was over. 

56 



Rally! 

Wrath softened to pity the instant their cry 

Took form of alarm and disaster, 
And we buried our ire in the grave of the Lie 

Above whose dark corpse we stood Master. 

Our hurts are as nothing — our gashes and scars 

Are worn without boastings and shamings: — 
What have men who have climbed to the steeps of the 
stars 

To do with Earth's vauntings and claimings ? 
But the Altars of Righteousness reared on the mounds 

Where our canonized heroes lie sleeping — 
Not a stone must be touched while the sun swings his 
rounds, 

And our sabres are still in our keeping! 

From your fields, then, and firesides, from workshops 
and plow, 

O, comrades, come forth in your splendor, 
Recrowning the Victor and Saver whom now 

Our temples demand as Defender! 
Fling out the great cry which you flung when the breath 

Of the cannon blew hot in your faces: — 
One Banner, one Being, one Freedom, one Faith, 

For immutable bulwark and basis! 



57 



IN MEMORIAM 

Read at the Annual Encampment of Pennsylvania Departm 
Grand Army of the Republic, Pittsburg, January 26, 1876. 

GREAT Greece hath her Thermopylae, 
Stout Switzerland her Tell; 
The Scott his Wallace heart — and we 

Have saints and shrines as well. 
The graves of glorious Marathon 

Are green above the dead, 
And we have battle-fields whereon 
The grass at root is red. 

. Not only in the grizzled past 

Tingled heroic blood; 
Not only were its swart sons cast 

In knightly mold and mood; 
Altar of sacrifice perfumed 

Our hot, sulphuric air; 
And Sidney's shining manhood bloomed 

Around us everywhere. 

Brands, regnant as the stainless sword 
That grazed King Arthur's thigh, 

53 



In Memoriam 

What time our battle instincts stirred, 

Flashed bare beneath the sky; 
We felt the rowels of honor prick 

As keenly as did he 
Who sowed his savage epoch thick 

With perfect chivalry. 

Cceur-de-lions on every field, 

Sweet saints in every home, 
Through whose dear helping stood revealed 

The joy of martyrdom — 
Compassed by whose assuring loves, 

Our comrades dared and died 
As blithely as a bridegroom moves 

To meet his glowing bride. 

Though tears be salt, and wormwood yet 

Is bitter to the taste, 
God's heart is tender, and doth let 

No sorrow fail or waste. 
O, mothers of our Gracchi! when 

You gave your jewels up, 
A continent of hopeless men 

Grew rich in boundless hope. 

Renown stands mute beside the graves 
With which the land is scarred; 

59 



In Memoriam 

Unheralded our splendid braves 
Went forth unto the Lord; 

No poet hoards their humble names 
In his immortal scrolls, 

But not the less the darkness flames 
With their illumined souls. 



Beneath the outward havoc, they 

The inward mercy saw; 
High intuitions of duty lay 

On them as strong as law; 
Beyond the bloody horizon 

They marked the soft rains stored, 
And heard heaven's tranquil voices run 

When earth's fierce cannon roared. 



O, little mounds that cost so much! 

We compass what you teach; 
And our worse grossness feels the touch 

Of your uplifting speech. 
You thrill us with the thoughts that flow 

In Eucharistic wine, 
And by our holy dead we know 

That life is still divine. 



60 



SALVETE MIUTES! 

Read at the Army of the Cumberland Reunion, 1873. 

WELCOME! and when we say it, we pack our 
hearts in the saying, 
Just as we did in the days war-crested, flaming and 

thunderous, 
When half the people were fighting and half the people 

* were praying, 
And slowly from crimson quags the granite of Peace 
grew under us. 

Ah, those were lofty days when, straight through our 

mincing and canting, 
The Soul of the Nation flashed, and gripped the hilt of 

its brand, 
And drained its aloes like wine, and strode forth, kindled 

and panting, 
Hewing, in forest of Lies, clear space for the Truth to 

stand. 

Ah, those were mighty days! mighty for stress and for 

sorrow, 
And mighty for regnant Manhood that turned them to 

glory and gain; 

61 



Salvete Milites ! 

What would have been the cast of Humanity's crowned 

to-morrow, 
Save for our yesterdays of turbulent passion and pain ? 

Save for the vivid swords which our reverent hearths 

are keeping, 
Save for the eloquent guns that held high faith with the 

State, 
Save for the heroes that sleep, and those who pass to 

their sleeping, 
Save for the dead that are shrined and for the living 

who wait ? 



This is our time of thrift, of Commerce, and Art, and of 

Science, 
And Nature, our nursing-mother, healeth the hurts of 

war: 
But the luster lights of our years are the sacrificial 

giants 
Who clave our blackness asunder and beaconed us 

whepe we are. 

Thomas, poised Titan of Battle; and Sheridan, Wrath's 

Archangel; 
And Grant, whose Cosmic purpose not Chaos itself 

could shake; 

62 



Salvete Milites ! 

And lance-like Sherman, who spurred with the Century's 

sharp evangel 
Into our century's drowse, and clarioned Sloth awake. 

And Hooker climbing the tlouds where his quarry 

perched above him; 
And Meade, Disciple of Duty — our hearts bend over his 

grave; 
And plumed McPherson the splendid, the true Heavens 

guard him and love him; 
And the scepterless kings of the ranks — the vast, un- 

laureled brave ! 

Living or dead, Earth thrills with their luminous fervor 
of spirit; 

Living or dead, their blood hath entered into our veins; 

Their voice — the nebulous stars of the pinnacled firma- 
ment hear it; 

Their work — in the nethermost pits its august influence 
reigns. 

For what are our times and spaces ? Leonidas greeted 

Warren; 
Under our scarlet fields great Marathon's secret ran. 
Nothing is past or future, nothing is hidden or foreign. 
The speech of Freedom is one, and one is the soul of 

Man. 

63 



OF LIBERTY AND CHARITY 

O, wherefore should ill ever flow from ill, 
And pain still keener pain forever breed ? 

We all are brethren ; even the slaves who kill 
For hire are men ; and do avenge misdeed 
On the misdoer, doth but Misery feed 

With her own broken heart. 

—Shelley. 

I. 

SO sang the wondrous singer all compact 
Of inspiration and prophetic fire; 
All built of instincts whose divineness tracked 

Music to its first springs, and did acquire 
The secret of the Everlasting Fact, 

To which the poets of the world aspire, 
And made the land which chased him o'er the seas 
Drunk with the wine of his fierce melodies. 

ii. 

He, being dead, yet speaketh; his great songs 
Run up and down the listening Universe 

Whitening the cheeks of Tyrannies and Wrongs, 
Smiting Oppression with a lyric curse; 

Fusing the alien thoughts of alien throngs 
So that they dwell in spiritual intercourse, 

And breathing like a sweet wind of the south 

On wan lips wasted by the troublous drouth 

64 



Of Liberty and Charity 



While lasts the language, his high hymns shall last; 

While stirs the heroic impulse, he shall stir 
The hearts of many like a bugle blast; 

And as the steed doth quicken to the spur, 
Men's souls shall quicken when his strains have passed 

Into their pulses, and grow worthier 
Of that ineffable beauty which he saw 
With his clear eyes of tenderness and awe. 



On him the sense of human brotherhood 
Lay like a Prophet's burden; if there ran 

Immortal maledictions in his blood 
For whatsoever desecrated Man — 

Nathless a lute-like voice of pity wooed 
The foolish evil-doer. His stern ban 

Was for the sin — upon the sinner's lips 

He laid the kisses of clean fellowships. 



To him the stature of a man was as 

The stature of an angel; he could see — 

Albeit but dimly, as through darkened glass — 
Gleams of a dread and awful sanctity 

Crowning the spotted foreheads, which, alas! 
Scarce felt their solemn crowning. Equally 

65 



Of Liberty and Charity 

He looked on kings and beggars; on the attaint 
As on the hero and the praying saint. 

VI. 

He saw Heaven's rivers of compassion roll 

To the uttermost ends of Being; and he strove 

With all the hoarded splendor of his soul 

To make the lean earth bless itself with Love, 

And crown itself with Love's grand aureole, 
Whereby the rhythmic garlands which he wove 

Were wonderful for beauty — iris-hued 

With the great glow of God's infinitude. 



VII. 



Thou winged Spirit, eagle-plumed for power, 
And flight beyond the daring of the eye! 

We have sore need of thee in this dark hour, 
When all the wells of kindness are drained dry, 

And popular passion rages to deflower 

The popular Conscience, and make Victory 

The procuress of Vengeance, and the lusts 

Of dragon-eyed suspicions and mistrusts. 

VIII. 

Let Liberty run onward with the years, 
And circle with the seasons; let her break 

66 



Of Liberty and Charity 

The tyrant's harshness, the oppressor's spears; 

Bring ripened recompenses that shall make 
Supreme amends for sorrow's long arrears; 

Drop holy benison on hearts that ache; 
Put clearer radiance into human eyes, 
And set the glad earth singing to the skies. 



IX. 



Let her voice thunder at the doors of kings, 

And lighten in black dungeons. Let her breath 

Stir the dry bones of peoples till there springs 
Life's fruitful vigor out of barren death, 

And, roused, vast millions clap triumphant wings 
O'er the mean devils which have hindered faith; 

And men's tall growths of excellence express 

Invincible, puissant nobleness. 



But let her do all worthily; let not 

The foul contagions of our selfishness 

Stain her immaculate purity, nor blot 

The brightness of her vesture, nor make less 

The marvelous divineness of her thought, 
Nor the rapt wisdom of her utterances, 

Nor that orbed splendor of her perfect light, 

Which is God's morning promised to the night. 

67 



Of Liberty and Charity 

XI. 

And ye, O sovran people of the land, 

Crowned with her benedictions, lifted up 

From chaos and low tracts of shifting sand, 
And owlish places wherein ye did grope, 

To the delectable mountains which command 
Far visions of your sanctuaries of hope — 

Be yet to Mercy and to Love as true 

As Love and Mercy have been unto you. 

XII. 

Behold! the things are possible to these 
Which are not possible to wrath; they bear 

The secret of the laden mysteries 

Piled like packed doom in the thick-boding air; 

At their fair girdles hang the mystic keys 

Which unlock inmost meanings; their brows wear 

The sole serenities that consecrate 

The masters of the subtle sphinx of Fate. 

XIII. 

Clean natures coin pure statutes. Let us cleanse 
The hearts that beat within us; let us mow 

Clear to the roots our falseness and pretense, 
Tread down our rank ambitions, overthrow 

Our braggart moods of puffed self-consequence, 
Plow up our hideous thistles which do grow 

68 



Retrospective and Introspective 

Faster than maize in May-time, and strike dead 
The base infections our low greeds have bred. 



For lo! our climbing purpose is in vain, 

In vain the vivid speech that glows and burns, 

In vain our throes of sacrificial pain; 
Empty of hand our Liberty returns 

From the broad fields where waves her golden grain; 
Balked of its future our sad presence mourns; 

Baffled is all our being until we 

On Freedom's august brows write Charity. 



RETROSPECTIVE AND INTROSPECTIVE 



I SIT alone in silentness, 
And dream, and muse, and ponder; 
Re-live the days of battle-stress, 
Re-tread the fields of thunder; 
Re-walk the wastes where Carnage fed 

His hounds, with blood for water; 
Re-view the cities of the dead, 
The bivouacs of slaughter. 

6 9 



Retrospective and Introspective 

I see the desolated homes, 

The ruined altar-places, 
The symbols of dread martyrdoms 

Written in women's faces; 
I hear the sonless father's sighs, 

The bereaved mother's praying, 
The little children's sobbing cries, 

Orphaned amid their playing. 



I mark the myriad souls that swoon 

Beneath War's cruel splinters; 
The widowed lives that dwell alone 

In everlasting winters; 
The unkissed lips which never shall 

Be kissed on any morrow; 
The hopeless eyes so terrible 

With unavailing sorrow. 



I see the lifting of the ban 

Our evil-doing brought us; 
The clearer views of Life and Man 

Which Heaven's swift justice taught us. 
I watch the homeward-hastening feet 

Of crowned and laureled legions, 
And thrill beneath the calms that greet 

The aching battle-regions. 

70 



Retrospective and Introspective 



O Northmen, brothers! were not we 

Copartners in the sinning ? 
Have we been leal to Liberty 

Through all, from the beginning? 
Did we upon no trembling slave 

The shackles ever rivet ? 
Give others that which ye I gave, 

Saith God — but do we give it ? 

If by the Lord's high Fatherhood 

The black man is our brother, 
Dare our unfilial arms exclude 

The white man for another ? 
Are we so clean that we dare scowl 

On any one attainted ? 
While we brand other hearts as foul, 

Have ours indeed repented ? 

Shall we who toadied to the Wrong 

In sycophantic meekness, 
What time its loins were broad and strong, 

Play tyrant in its weakness ? 
Have we who, in our by-gone days, 

Ran liveried beside it, 
No covert in the untrodden ways, 

Where pitying Death may hide it? 

71 



Retrospective and Introspective 

Could we drain dry the bitter cup 

Of life's humiliation. 
Without one tender word of hope, 

Or love's extenuation ? 
Have we no honorable faith 

For those whose swords are broken ? 
Conditions ? — must our shibboleth 

By all the world be spoken ? 



No man can climb so close to God 

But needeth to beseech Him, 
Nor lapse so far toward devilhood 

That mercy can not reach him; 
We stand, with all, on level ground, 

In equal human fashion, 
Encompassed by the blue profound 

Of Infinite Compassion! 

Shake hands, then, o'er the rusted swords, 

O, blood-bedraggled nation; 
Smile down the past with sweet accords 

Of reconciliation; 
Walk brotherly and lovingly 

The upward paths of duty, 
And let the kings and tyrants see 

A People's kingly beauty! 

72 



10 TRIOMPHE! 

NOT ever, in all human time, 
Did any man or nation 
Plant foot upon the peaks sublime 

Of Mount Transfiguration, 
But first, in long preceding hours 

Of dread and solemn Being, 
Crashed battle 'gainst Satanic powers, 
Alone with The All-Seeing. 

God's glory lights no mortal brows 

Which sorrow hath not wasted; 
No wine hath He for lips of those 

His lees who never tasted. 
Nor ever, till in bloodiest stress 

The heart is well approved, 
Does the All-brooding Tenderness 

Cry, This is my Beloved! 

O land through years of shrouded nights 

In triple blackness groping 
Toward the far prophetic lights 

That beacon the world's hoping, — 

73 



Io Triomphe! 

Behold! no tittle shalt thou miss 

Of that transforming given 
To all who, dragged to hell's abyss, 

Hold fast their grip on heaven. 

The Lord God's purpose throbs along 

Our stormy turbulences; 
He keeps the sap of nations strong 

With hidden recompenses. 
The Lord God sows His righteous grain 

In battle-blasted furrows, 
And draws from present days of pain 

Large peace for calm to-morrows. 

Brothers! beneath our brimming tears 

Lies nobler cause for singing 
Than ever in the shining years 

When all our vales were ringing 
With happy sounds of mellow Peace, 

And all our cities thundered 
With lusty echoes, and our seas 

By freighted keels were sundered. 

For lo! the branding flails that drave 
Our husks of foul self from us, 

Show all the watching heavens we have 
Immortal grain of promise; 

74 



Io Triomphe! 

And lo! the dreadful blasts which blew 

In gusts of fire amid us, 
Have scorched and winnowed from the true 

The Falseness that undid us. 

No floundering more, for mind or heart, 

Among the lower levels; 
No welcome more for moods that sort 

With satyrs and with devils; 
But over all our fruitful slopes, 

On all our plains of beauty, 
Fair temples for fair human hopes, 

And altar-thrones for Duty. 

Wherefore, O ransomed people, shout; 

O banners, wave in glory; 
O bugles, blow the triumph out, 

O drums, strike up the story. 
Clang! broken fetters, idle swords 

Clap hands, O States, together; 
And let all praises be the Lord's, 

Our Savior and our Father! 



75 



THE JOY GUN 

BORNE on the wings of the Northern breeze, 
Wafted on airs from happy seas, 
The word of the Lord by His servant's mouth 
Came to the bondsmen of the South, 
And young and old, with a sudden cry, 
Answered, "Yea, Master, here am I." 

With the dread of his old life shuddering through him, 
With the hope of his new life beckoning to him, 
In his heart the goad of the troubled eyes 
Of those whose prayers flew on before him, 
And a vast, vague dream of broad free skies 
Bending like God's dear pity o'er him, 
The black man looked in our general's face, 
Speaking his word for himself and race. 

He was only a black man — grim and gaunt, 
Torn and tattered, and lean from want, 
Mixed with the slime of the oozing fen 
Wherein he had crouched from tiger-men; 
Poor and ignorant, mean and low, 
Blossom of ages of shame and woe, 
Cowed by scourges and chains and whips, 

76 



The Joy Gun 

Starved of bountiful fellowships; 

Dull of feeling, heavy of brain, 

Dead to the finer spiritual sense 

Which through the white man's passion and pain 

Sees that the heavens are clear, and thence 

God shining on us. Only a slave 

With the ache in his breast which dumb souls have. 



But, as he stood there, bare of head, 

Telling the Union general 

How his people rose and fled 

Out from the very gates of hell 

Into the darkness, into the night, 

Through terrible leagues of mortal flight, 

Past forest and thicket, swamp and flood, 

Leaving a trail of human blood; 

And how he, too, had crawled and crept 

Through the armed watch the enemy kept 

To see for his brethren hidden there, 

Down in the jungles' fastnesses, 

Whether indeed a pathway were 

Open to freedom for him and his; 

And how they waited with straining ear, 

And hearts on tiptoe of hope and fear, 

To catch the throb of the " blessed gun " 

Which he prayed might shout to them, all was won; 

The general said it should be done. 

77 



The Joy Gun 

Oh ! it was wonderful to trace 

How, o'er his black and stolid face 

Shot, like an instant gleam from the sun, 

A pained rapture, an awful grace, 

An august look in his lifted eyes, 

'Tranced with a vision through which there brake 

The self-same Infinite voice which spake 

To the dead Lazarus, saying, "Arise!" 

So was the human soul within him 

Drawn from its hideous sepulcher 

To where archangels might woo and win him, 

And the breath of the Lord be comforter. 

So from his brow like a cowl there slid 

The stagnate seeming of sullen care, 

In the dark of which had the man lain hid — 

A new life to the roots of his hair; 

The glory of God eclipsed the brute, 

And the slave fell dead at the freedman's foot. 



Oh, gun of freedom! that then and there 
Poured for the fainting fugitives 
Oil of gladness upon despair, 
Healing balm upon bruised lives. 
Albeit thou speakest but once, I know 
That thy grand thunder shall never die, 
But gather an ampler voice, and grow 
In greatening echoes around the sky, 

78 



We Need You Not 

Over the hurtling shouts of war, 

Landward and seaward, near and far, 

Till every tyranny reels and rocks, 

Smitten to hell by mighty shocks, 

And the wasted hearts of the weary rouse, 

Springborn, from desolate wintry drowse, 

And its blessed billows of music roll 

To shackled body and thralled soul, 

Slave and master, bond and free, 

Till the whole earth, Lord, lies pure in Thee. 



WE NEED YOU NOT 

OUT of the way there! ye who stand 
Between us and the blessed light 
That streams up where the promised land 

Dawns faint and far upon our sight. 
Out of the way there! ye who call 

Our faith and works too bold and hot; 
' We move in column like a wall! 

Out of the way! We need you not. 

Out of the way there! ye who give 
Your free hopes reaching to the skies, 

For that poor, trembling fugitive — 
The thing ye call a " Compromise." 

79 



We Need You Not 

Out of the way there! ye who fear 

To accept the right or choose the wrong! 

Out of the way there — insincere! 
And let the people pass along. 

Out of the way there! ye who think 

God's battles can be bought and sold; 
God's voices silenced by the chink 

Of silver, or the touch of gold! 
Back to the safety which befits 

Your smooth lips and your scented words; 
Out of the way there — hypocrites! 

For this is Truth's hour and the Lord's. 

What! shall our souls that saw and heard 

The living covenant of God, 
And marked His Angel's flaming sword 

In all the places that we trod, 
Shall we tear off the crowns that press 

Our foreheads as the touch of stars, 
And, for your velvet littleness, , 

Give up our grand old battle-scars ? 

Out of the way! ye can not buy 

Our Israel with your subtle creeds, 

While all the wilderness doth lie 
In manna for our human needs! 

80 



The Question 

Back to your fleshpots and your chains, 
Your brackish waters and your thirst. 

Thank God our manhood still remains! 
Stand back! we will not be accurst. 



THE QUESTION 

AMEN!" I cried in battle time, 
When my beautiful heroes perished, — 
The earth of the Lord shall bloom sublime 

By the blood of its martyrs nourished. 
' Amen! " I said, when their limbs were hewn, 
And their wounds showed blue and ghastly; 
The strength of a man may fail and swoon, 
But the truth shall conquer lastly. 

And "Amen!" I cried, when victory's hymn 

Swelled over our crown'd banners; 
When our eyes with the blinding tears were dim, 

Because of our heart's hosannas; 
But I will not basely stab my death 

With a poniard-stroke whilst giving 
Amen to the lie that seeks to spread 

Its black wrong over the living. 

81 



The Question 

If you shake clean hands with the truth you shall 

Read life's essential meaning, 
And through the apocalyptical 

Vineyards of light walk gleaming; 
But not in the traffic-mongering marts 

Where you place a market value 
On the Christward aching of human hearts, 

Hath His angel ought to tell you. 



You think that your opaque eyes are one 

With the eagle's eyes for vigor, 
While you turn your back on the truth, and shun 

Its light with a curse for the " nigger." 
You prate of mercy and — cotton bales, 

But I fancy you are not minded 
That justice, holding the awful scales, 

Being blind, is color-blinded. 



Can you patch a cloak for your nakedness 

With shreds of your own contriving ? 
Will your shoddy endure the strain and stress 

Of the looms that the gods are driving ? 
Behold the winds of the Lord shall tear 

Your beggarly rags in sunder, 
And leave you shivering, shamed, and bare 

To the search of its packed thunder. 

82 



Our Wessons 

Will you drowse your lives with a new pretense, 

Ere the blood is dry in the valleys 
That were lately soaked for the old offense; 

Will you learn anew what hell is ? 
Do you think that the grapes of God will slip 

Out of reach when you are sated, 
Or that of his sovran mastership 

One jot will be abated ? 

From the unsung graves where our heroes died 

In a regnant scorn of dying; 
From souls that out of the dark have cried 

Through ages of bitter crying; 
From the solemn heavens, where all must stand, 

Calling to every spirit, 
A voice sweeps warning across the land, — 

O brothers! let us hear it! 



OUR LESSONS 

Read Before the Army of Potomac Society, Harrisburg, Pa., 
May 12, 1874. 

WELL, we acknowledge it; we admit 
That peace is blessed, that war is awful, 
And when we nobly compass it 
The gain of commerce is fair and lawful. 

S3 



Our Lessons 

We grant that sickles and pruning hooks 
Are better than swords and battle-axes; 

And wine and honey, and art and books, 
Sweeter than wounds and debts and taxes. 

But still, if by treacherous yielding chance 

The land hath trafficked its splendid anger 
For only a lean inheritance 

Of outward lustness and inward languor, 
Why then, O comrades, it were full well 

If the shocks of our armies were not over; 
For the Lord made men to conquer Hell, 

And not to fatten like kine in clover. 

Our thrifts that crown us, our calms that fold 

Our strength far stretching to the Equator, 
Are less than our simplest hurts of old, 

Except as Liberty makes them greater. 
O riddled banners! O rusted guns! 

Your grandeur moves in endless shining, 
Because wherever our Empire runs 

Manhood and law run intertwining. 

If the loud paeans o'er shotless guns 
Mean also glory unto the Father, 

So that wherever our border runs 
Justice and mercy may run together; 

84 



Our Lessons 

Why, then I answer that every song 

You sing to the sweet peace brooding o'er us, 

Cleaving the ether shall bear along 
The added burden cf my weak chorus. 

Behold! our culminant battle-cries 

Climb to the sapphire-crested portals! 
We hold clean covenant with the skies, 

Fair faith with the pinnacled immortals! 
And lo! the thunderous blasts that blew 

In sulphurant gusts of fire amid us, 
Scorched and winnowed the breasted true 

From the frontal falseness that undid us. 

The Master's purposes throb along 

Our stoniest wraths of turbulences; 
He stayeth the sap of Peoples strong 

With hidden rigors and recompenses; 
For He scatters His everlasting grain 

In bloodiest, war-drenched field and furrows; 
And reaps from Yesterday's woe and pain, 

Peace for the larger world's to-morrows. 

Let all the loud voices radiant shout! 

Ye clustering flags move on in glory! 
Brave bugles blow the victories out! 

Beat drums, the knperishable story! 

85 



Justice or Trade 

While olden foemen, with new accords 
Of knightliest reconciliation, 

Clasp hands across innoxious swords 
Wedded to our great hero-nation. 



JUSTICE OR TRADE 

THAN this no further, I am afeared. 
I see an Infinite splendor waiting; 
I see an Infinite Terror reared; 

I see a people hesitating 
Between a narrowing shibboleth 

And a cry that climbs to the sapphire portals, 
Between low pacts that are crammed with death 
And a covenant with the Immortals. 



For God's dread tongues of terrible fire, 

Eating the darkness that plucked our vitals, 
And cast us prone in the hungry mire, 

Achoke with agony — what requitals? 
Behold in lowliest human guise 

The Master standeth; the hour is going; 
We look with straight incredulous eyes; 

Our false lips move, and the cock is crowing. 

86 



The Grand Army 

Certes, our creditors need their dues, 

But also the Heavens will have just payment. 
If they arraign us, I think we lose 

All, and not merely food and raiment. 
It hurts (does it not ?) when the flaming knives 

Of a mad assasssin hew and stab us ? 
Well, when the messenger arrives, 

Shall we send the Nazarene or Barabbas ? 



THE GRAND ARMY 

Written for and sung in G. A. R. Posts as part of the RituaL 

FROM eastern sea to western shore, 
Loyally, right loyally, 
And breasted like the knights of yore, 

Royally, yes, royally, 
Roused by the rebel cannon roar, 
Our columns thickened more and more, 
With prayers behind and faith before, 
Rose the Union's Army Grand. 

From hall and hut, from near and far, 

Readily, most readily, 
We sprang unto the cry of war, 

Steadily, right steadily. 

87 



The Grand Army 

Stung by the crime that we abhor, 
We girded on our armor for 
Deliverance of the nation, or 

Soldier's death on honor's field. 



Through sun and gloom, through field and flood, 

Gloriously, yes, gloriously, 
We pressed our path in wounds and blood, 

Victoriously, victoriously; 
Graves grew beneath us where we stood; 
By every vale, and mount, and wood, 
They wait the reveille of God — 

Soldiers of that Army Grand. 



Heaven rest our comrades in their graves, 

Lovingly, most lovingly; 
Heaven beam upon our living braves, 

Approvingly, approvingly; 
And oh! where'er our banner waves, 
Freedom shall beckon unto slaves, 
So long as God protects and saves 

What the Grand old Army won. 



THE DEFENSE OF LAWRENCE 

[Written after hearing the account given the poet on his arrival 
in Kansas, early in the fall of 1856, of the resistance made in 
September of that year to the last pro-slavery attack on I<awrence, 
Kansas, when a small number of Free State men successfully held 
the place against 2,400 armed Missourians, and drove back their ad- 
vance of 300 men.] 

ALL night upon the guarded hill, 
Until the stars were low, 
Wrapped round as with Jehovah's will, 

We waited for the foe; 
All night the silent sentinels 

Moved by like gliding ghosts; 
All night the fancied warning bells 
Held all men to their posts. 



We heard the sleeping prairies breathe, 

The forest's human moans, 
The hungry gnashing of the teeth 

Of wolves on bleaching bones; 
We marked the roar of rushing fires, 

The neigh of frightened steeds, 
The voices as of far-off lyres 

Among the river reeds. 

89 



The Defense of Iyawrence 

We were but thirty-nine who lay 

Beside our rifles then; 
We were but thirty-nine, and they 

Were twenty hundred men. 
Our lean limbs shook and reeled about, 

Our feet were gashed and bare, 
And all the breezes shredded out 

Our garments in the air. 



Sick, sick of all the woes which spring 

Where falls the Southron's rod, 
Our very souls had learned to cling 

To freedom as to God; 
And so we never thought of fear 

In all those stormy hours, 
For every mother's son stood near 

The awful, unseen powers. 



And twenty hundred men had met 

And swore an oath of hell, 
That, ere the morrow's sun might set, 

Our smoking homes should tell 
A tale of ruin and of wrath, 

And damning hate in store, 
To bar the freeman's western path 

Against him evermore. 

90 



The Defense of Lawrence 

They came: the blessed Sabbath day, 

That soothed our swollen veins, 
Like God's sweet benediction, lay 

On all the singing plains; 
The valleys shouted to the sun, 

The great woods clapped their hands, 
And joy and glory seemed to run 

Like rivers through the lands. 



And then our daughters and our wives, 

And men whose heads were white, 
Rose sudden into kingly lives 

And walked forth to the fight; 
And we drew aim along our guns 

And calmed our quickening breath, 
Then, as is meet for Freedom's sons, 

Shook loving hands with Death. 



And when three hundred of the foe 

Rode up in scorn and pride, 
Whoso had watched us then might know 

That God was on our side. 
For all at once a mighty thrill 

Of grandeur through us swept, 
And strong and swiftly down the hill 

Like Gideons we leapt. 

9i 



The Defense of Lawrence 

And all throughout that Sabbath day 

A wall of fire we stood, 
And held the baffled foe at bay, 

And streaked the ground with blood. 
And when the sun was very low 

They wheeled their stricken flanks, 
And passed on, wearily and slow, 

Beyond the river* banks. 



Beneath the everlasting stars 

We bended child-like knees, 
And thanked God for the shining scars 

Of his large victories; 
And some, who lingered, said they heard 

Such wondrous music pass 
As though a seraph's voice had stirred 

The pulses of the grass. 



* The Wakarusa, Kansas. 



92 



"WE WILL SUBDUE YOU" 

Reply to a Southern threat in 1856. 

GO tell it to the slaves that quake 
Amid your canefields and your swamps; 
Go hiss it to the hearts you break 

Beneath your scornful midnight lamps; 
With curses out from cruel lips, 

With tortures and with threats to kill, 
And damned stripes from streaming whips 
Subdue your chattels to your will. 

But never speak these words to us 

Who claim free breath on Freedom's soil, 
Lest on your heads the slanderous 

Black lie of infamy recoil. 
We owe no fealty to you 

Whose gold is slippery with the gore 
Your cleaving knives and scourges drew 

From the gashed souls you lord it o'er. 

There breathes no driver in your clime, 

Tho belted to the ribs with steel, 
And choked with slavery's foul slime, 

Of whom we dare not think and feel, 

93 



"We Will Subdue You" 

And speak, too, as the truth shall list, 

In tones that scorch and words that warn, 

Till pelted, pilloried and hissed, 

He slinketh from the People's scorn. 

Subdue ye those who spring from men 

That Mayflower brought o'er the seas, 
Who heard God talking with them, when, 

Beneath their bent and praying knees, 
The wintry rocks of Plymouth thrilled, 

And startled like a living soul 
At such deep cries of faith, that stilled 

The lasht waves into calm control ? 

Subdue the sons of those who fought 

Their sturdy way on Bunker Hill, 
Nor ever rested till they wrought 

Heaven's meaning on a monarch's will! 
Subdue the people who subdue 

The forests and the mighty plains, 
Who make the old earth ring anew 

With nobler songs in higher strains! 

Subdue us! well, perchance ye may 
When, rising up to kindlier aims, 

You cast your scowling pride away, 

And wipe the tarnish from your names; 

94 



Ireland's Misrule 

Yea, when you win the highest place 
Of honor in these peerless wars, 

Of strength and truth and princely grace, 
You shall be crowned as conquerors. 

We give the grasp of loving hands, 

We speak the word of kindly zeal, 
To all who crown the swarming lands 

With larger hopes of human weal. 
But while your " chivalry " begets 

Such ulcers on the Nation's heart, 
We break like reeds your empty threats 

And stand as strangers, wide apart. 



IRELAND'S MISRULE 

O ENGLAND, from thy glory and greatness of old, 
So cankered with Commerce, so corrupted with 
gold, 
So hungry for Empire, so thirsty for blood, 
So cruel to Man and so false to God! 

Art thou the gemmed Island whose Liberty runs 

Through circles of ages and cycles of suns; 

From Arthur, and Alfred, and Harold, and all 

The high sources whose grandeur but deepen thy fall? 

95 



Ireland's Misrule 

Art thou the brave land which the Poets have sung, 
Round such a world's hopings have clustered and clung? 
The beautiful land which earth's exiles hold dear ? 
Was Sidney thy soldier — was Shakespeare thy seer ? 

Did Wilberforce spring from thy loins ? Was it thou 
Whom Hampden called Mother, and Milton did plow 
The fields of his soul for, and Russell and Vane 
Made the days of Aristides blossom again ? 

O drugged with ambition, and sodden with pride, 

And soaked with the tears which thy victims have cried, 

Hypocrisy sweating from every pore, 

And dabbled all over with splashes of gore! 

Thy grip on the famishing throat of the Celt, 
Thy foot on the shrines where his fathers have knelt; 
Thy spies at his fireside, thy hounds on his track, 
Thy sword in his bosom, thy stripes on his back ! 

But the sigh of the parent, the sob of the child, 

The breasts which are milkless, the eyes that look wild, 

The hunger and nakedness, sorrow and pain, 

The famine of body and fever of brain, 

Which — piled like a pyramid unto the skies — 
Convict thee of robbery, murder, and lies, 

9 6 



Ireland's Misrule 

Pluck bitterer woes upon thee than thy wrath, 
At its blackest and worst, can hurl into his path. 

Thy heel upon Ireland; but lo! upon thee 

The curse of her children, wherever they be! 

Thy chains on her limbs, thy clenched fist in her face, 

But on thee the dark shame and damning disgrace! 

Still with fire and falsehood defend as thou wilt 
The wrong and the outrage, the crime and the guilt; 
And still with glib rhetoric varnish the lie, 
And still fling the flails of Oppression on high; 

But the wrong will not prosper, the crime not endure; 
For Fate — Heaven's stern headsmen — though silent, is 

sure; 
And never in all the long lapse of the past 
Did a tyranny grow but it withered at last. 

It withered and shriveled, it tottered and fell, 
Mid bloody dishonor and ruin of hell; 
With hisses for requiems, hootings for tears, 
Accursed and abhorred through the evermore years. 

Play fast and loose then, O England, and still 
Make sharper the rack and more grievous the ill; 
Bribe, bully and trample, defy and defraud, 
Yet thou bribest not Justice, thou tramplest not God. 

97 



SONGS OF 
LOVE AND 
CIRCUMSTANCE 



KANSAS 



1856. 



LIKE the soft hand of love falls the air on my brow, 
And sweet are the memories clasping me now, 
And holy as life is the beauty that thrills 
Thro' the hearts of the valleys, the views of the hills, 

And sacred my home o'er the far away sea; 
Yet dearer than all is dear Kansas to me. 

O she draws me and awes me with truth and with light, 
As a Poet is drawn by the stars of the night, 

And she touches the quick of my soul till it swims* 
On a sea of pure glory and blossoming hymns. 

And I love her with beauty that seems to excel 
The grandeur of heaven and the terrors of hell. 

But not for the lavishing riches she owns, 

And not for the wealth of her mountainous thrones, 

And not for the forests that girdle her streams, 
Nor her plains that melt as the amber of dreams, 

And not for the spirit-like swell of her slopes, 
Do I crown her with all the delights of my hopes. 



Kansas 

But for her queenliness, shown in the time 

When her raiment was soiled by the fingers of crime, 

When the green of her gardens was spattered with red, 
And the terraces dripped with the blood of her dead, 

And her widows and orphans sat wringing their hands, 
While malice and murder stalked over her lands. 



For the storm which flashed from her beautiful eyes 
When her peerless affection was tempted with lies; 

For the blow that she dealt in the treacherous face 
Of the robber and spoiler who stood in her place; 

And the joy of her tears, like the sun on the mists, 

When she passed to the torture with chains on her 
wrists. 

For the majesty wreathing the steps of her youth, 
And all of her loveliness, all of her truth; 

For all the deep lessons of wisdom she taught, 

And for all the great deeds which her strong hands 
have wrought; 

O, for this do I leap at the sound of her name, 

And love her with love that mounts upward like flame. 



102 



FATHER-LOVE 

O EARTH is full of lovely things 
Which our dear Father-God has made, 
Of buds and blooms and gleaming wings, 
And bursts of light and depths of shade. 

O, thick across the purple skies 
The wondrous flashing stars are strewn, 
And bright with cherub-children's eyes 
The glowing world is overgrown. 

But never, in the woods at noon, 

Or underneath the stars at night, 
Or in the low sweet vales of June, 

Or on the mountain's upper height, — 
O, never thrilled my blood so much, 

And never leaped my heart so wild, 
As when I bowed my head to touch 

The sweet lips of my first-born child. 

O, in the unspeakable baptism 

Of that strange love that o'er me stole, 

How streamed the sacred, solemn chrism 
Thro' all the fibers of my soul! 

103 



Father-Love 

And every silent yearning hope 
Shot outward into sudden speech, 

And when I drew my horoscope 

The stars were close within my reach. 

Ay! and I know that evermore 

I have held higher talk with heaven, 
In deeper whispers than before 

That large new blessedness was given. 
I could not part her precious hair 

Nor look upon her sacred eyes, 
And not within my full soul swear 

To mark her steps in Paradise. 

I hear her low voice in the hall, 

Her liquid laugh among the flowers; 
And pulse leaps unto pulse, and all 

My life goes seeking her for hours. 
And when she rises to my knee 

And lightly nestles toward my cheek 
With love that clings so utterly, 

I clasp her, but I can not speak. 

O, mid the tumult of the town, 

The care the canker and the doubt, 

And when the flaming sun goes down, 
And when the holy stars are out; 

104 



To a Friend 

In the great stillness of the night, 
And in the front of garish day, 

She wraps me like a robe of light, 
And turns to spirit all my clay. 

God bless my child! I never knew 

Life's vastness until she was born. 
God bless my child! and keep her true 

Through all her deeper-widening morn. 
O, reach Thy Hand out through the years 

And hold her near Thee undefiled; 
And give her oil of joy for tears, 

And Father, Father! bless my child. 



TO A FRIEND 

A MANY years have come and gone, 
Dear friend, since you and I 
First felt our two souls strangely drawn 
Together utterly. 

A many glorious promise-days, 
And sacred star-crowned heights, 

Since we stood thrilling in the blaze 
Of new love's golden lights. 

105 



A Picture 

And purely as a Sabbath psalm, 

And grandly as the sea, 
Throughout all moods of storm and calm, 

Your soul has clung to me. 

And I, amid the whirl and roar 
Of strifes where I have striven, 

Have kept unsinned forever more 
The glory it hath given. 

So, when the great waves separate 

Our closely clasped hands, 
And we go forth to work and wait 

In far off hopeful lands; 

Then in all times of ill and good, 

All hours of joy and woe, 
God bless our holy brotherhood 

Wherever we may go. 



A PICTURE 

BEAUTIFUL! beautiful! The great round moon 
Hangs among the stars upon the verge of heaven, 
Like a vast hope within a boundless soul 

1 06 



A Picture 

Brimful of lofty majesty; the stars 

Wait on her steps, as glowing pages wait 

Upon a gorgeous queen. 

Onward she sweeps, 
With regal footsteps up the vaulted sky, 
Beaming fair smiles on all her satellites 
As on a meek suitor beams a peerless maid. 
Far in the West the glowing heavens bend down 
Kissing the sunset hills, as one betrothed 
Embraces his beloved. 

To the South and dim, 
The grand old Ocean, dark and deep, 
Spreads out like an eternity; one ship 
With her white folded wings lies anchored there, 
Like an angel sleeping on the breast of God. 
Hidden in yon thicket, hark! the nightingale 
Pours her wild music in the ear of night, 
Till it seems drunk with joy. Hark! how the excess 
Of her sweet song streams thrilling from her soul 
Sweet as the music of an angel's harp 
Attuned by Gabriel's hand. 

How mystical 
And dreamlike comes the murmur of the stream 
That babbles through the valley! It is like 
A virgin beauty, who in bridal dreams 
Vaguely and in half words tells unto the night 
The secret of her soul. 

107 



Burns 

The panting breeze 
Throbs tremulous on yon green hill of pines, 
Like the hopeful shuddering of a stripling's heart, 
Earnest, yet all untried. 

Far-off I see 
The red fires gleaming in the village homes, 
Flashing their strange lights even at my feet, 
As prophets flash their stirring flaming thoughts 
Across the mists of time. 

The green earth sleeps 
' Neath the eye of Heaven, like a fair girl 
On whose white finger the betrothal ring, 
Graven with her lover's name and set with gems, 
Lies glittering like the stars. For thus hath God 
Put this high name upon the virgin Earth 
Whom he will some day wed! 



BURNS 

A LITTLE bird with gorgeous wing 
And notes of sweet imagining, 
Carolled away one sunny spring 

Carelessly wild. 
In truth, he was a wanton thing, 
Nature's own child! 

108 



Burns 

Beneath a shady tree one day- 
Were met some lords and ladies gay 
Who came to pass the hours away 

And time beguile, 
While he upon the leanest spray 
Sang all the while. 

So soft his song, and aye so free, 

So full of nature's melody 

And truth and trust and sympathy, 

That those who heard 
Marveled such magic notes should be 

Found in a bird. 

The rich command when they entreat, 
For he who sang so passing sweet 
Flew down upon the ground to meet 

Their specious smiles, 
And soon, alas! his little feet 

Were in the toils. 

They took him to the town, and there 
Displayed their wondrous prisoner 
To all the noble and the fair 

Who chose to see 
That native of the mountain air. 

That prodigy, 

109 



Burns 

So every one who came would bring 
More flattery for that songster-thing! 
And then they'd ask to hear him sing. 

While he complied, 
They'd pluck a feather from his wing 

And slyly hide! 

At length, as human nature will, 

They tired when they had had their fill, 

Cared not to know his matchless skill, 

But passed him by; 
When he, disgusted with his ill, 

Essayed to fly. 

But ah! he could not. Never more, 
Whilst sweetly singing, might he soar 
Heavenward, as oft he did before. 

Man's praise he drank. 
Flattery from him his pinions tore 

And so — he sank! 

Alas! alas! Such was the fate 
Of Burns, the noble, not the great. 
He grasped at flattery's cursed bait, 

And so his life 
Was crushed beneath fell sorrow's weight 

And sickening strife! 



TWO 

To Mary P. Nimmo 

I WAS a poet; and sometimes, 
When the lyric impulse touched my lips, 
I sang my cheery and homely rhymes 

Of simple loves and fellowships. 
She w T as of those whose presence brings 

A sense of the peace we can recall 

In our far-off, angel-haunted springs, — 

So I stood dreaming; that was all. 

My heart was parched with terrible drouth, 

Her heart with pity was dewy-sweet, 
And ever around her sacred youth 

All things holy and fair did meet. 
O, in what meek unconscious mood 

She wore the beautiful coronal 
Of her perfect gracious womanhood! — 

So I stood dreaming; that was all. 

Closer and closer, nigher and nigher, 
Something drew me each day to her, 

And I dreamed (O passionate heart of fire!) 
That I was not shut in a sepulcher, 



Two 

Stifling forever a moaning cry, 

Lest haply my heaviness should fall 
Upon brooding lovers passing by — 

Thus I stood dreaming; that was all. 

O tender face I kiss in the night, 

When I glide in sleep through my prison bars, 
And my spirit walks erect in the light, 

In the dawn of the everlasting stars! 
O, eyes of sweet austerity! 

O tender voice that thrilled in the hall 
Like the sound of flutes on the open sea! — 

So I stand dreaming; that is all. 

serene lowliness of mien, 

balmy spiritual effluence, 
That made the air about her clean 

With smells of Eden-innocence, 
So that all evil things in the street 

Crouched, when she passed, in the shade of the wall, 
That else were stricken dead at her feetl — 

Yet am I dreaming; that is all. 

1 stand here now in the dark and think; 

1 kneel here now in the dark, and pray: 
" O Father! I will be strong to drink 

My bitter aloes, if thou alway 

112 



Byron 

Wilt shine on the paths her feet must tread, 
So that no hurt nor harming shall 

Vex one dear hair of her precious head." 
This is my covenant; that is all. 



BYRON 

HE was a wild, proud youth, with fiery eyes 
Which but ensphered the image of his soul, 
A thing of boundless passion, all unwise 
As tameless steed impatient of control, 
One of those strange incarnate mysteries 
Whose lives like waves in headlong fury roll 
Until, arrested by some sullen rock, 
Their hearts are smote in pieces with the shock. 

A burning fever lay within his hearty 

Heating like fire the blood in every veir^ 

And ever and anon a flash would start 

Like lightning from his heart into his brain, 

And lie there scorching, like a fiery dart, 

Till, in the terrible madness of his pain, 

In thoughts like those by which himself was riven, 

He'd hurl his enmity at God and Heaven. 

113 



Life and Love 

But he was wretched! Poor child, he could not pray. 
He could not own that he was weak and vile. 
He might have revelled in the light of day, 
Yet hugged his darkness closer all the while. 
And so he let life's grandeur glide away, 
And never on him fell one hope, one smile. 
And then he died! As he had lived he died, 
His white lips curled in bitterness and pride. 

On a lone rock, amid a sea of souls, 

His memory like a solemn specter stands, 

And as in mighty waves it swells and rolls 

There — in the tempest with uplifted hands 

It warns them wildly off the reefs and shoals. 

And so the tide streams on to other lands, 

And evermore within its memory lies 

That haggard phantom with its burning eyes. 



LIFE AND LOVE 

THERE is something to live for and something to 
love 
Wherever we linger, wherever we rove 
There are thousands of sad ones to cheer and sustain 
Till hopes that were hidden beam o'er them again. 

114 



Song of Spring 

There is something to live for and something to love, 
For the spirit of Man is like garden or grove, 

It will yield a sweet fragrance, but still you must toil, 
And cherish the blossoms, and culture the soil. 

There is something to live for and something to love, 
'Tis a truth which the misanthrope ne'er can disprove, 

For tho' thorns and thistles may choke up the flower, 
Some beauty will grace the most desolate bower. 

Then think on it, brother, wherever thou art, 

Let the life be for men and the love for the heart, 

For know that the pathway which leads us above 
Is something to live for and something to love. 



SONG OF SPRING 

MY heart goes forth to meet the Spring 
With the step of a bounding roe, 
For it seems like the touch of a seraph's wing 
When the pleasant south winds blow. 

O, I love the loneliness that lies 

In the smiling heart of May, 
The beauty throbbing in violet eyes, 

The breath of the fragrant hay. 

ii5 



Letters from Home 

There's a great calm joy in the song of birds, 
And in the voice of the streams, 

In the lowly peace of flocks and herds, 
And our own soul's quiet dreams. 

So my heart goes forth to meet the Spring 

As a lover to his bride; 
And over us both there broods the wing 

Of the angel at her side. 



LETTERS FROM HOME 

LETTERS from my father's household, 
Isled amid the far-off sea, 
Swift-winged messengers of gladness, 

Bearing rest and peace to me. 
Father's calm and sacred counsel, 

Mother's large and shining tears, 
And my sister's brimming blessings 
Flung across the mighty years. 

Oh, the dear and loving letters! 

Oh, my childhood's thronging dreams! 
Oh, the ancient low-roofed cottage, 

With its quaint old oaken beams ! 

116 



Letters from Home 

Oh, the haunts among the meadows, 
And the moss-crowned garden seat, 

Where the scented apple blossoms 
Swept in waves about my feet. 

And I sit and muse upon it 

Till I seem to see it all; 
See the rich grapes' purple clusters 

Drooping from the leafy wall; 
See the mellow pears a-ripening, 

Breathe the breath of well-known flowers, 
Watch the steady house clock marking 

All the pulses of the hours. 

Father's hair is growing whiter, 

Mother's step is feebler now, 
But the olden queen-like beauty 

Lingers yet around her brow; 
And the low, sweet tones that thrilled me, 

And the lips I used to press, 
Oh, the years can never win them 

From their holy tenderness! 

And the flashing eyes of laughter, 
And the speech of merry scorn, 

And the rippling auburn ringlets 
Of our household's youngest born, 

117 



Annunciation 

These have melted and have deepened 

To the glory and the grace 
Of a tranquil maiden moving 

Thoughtfully amid the place. 

Letters from my father's household, 

Isled amid the far-off sea, 
Swift-winged messengers of gladness, 

Bearing rest and peace to me. 
Let the foaming world roar onward, 

Let the sinless children play, 
And the young bride clasp her husband, 

I am wealthiest to-day. 



ANNUNCIATION 

IS the grave deep, dear? Deeper still is Love. 
They can not hide thee from thy Father's heart. 
Thou liest below, and I stand here above, 
Yet we are not apart. 

The lyric patter of the little feet 

That made a poem of the nursery floor, 
Thy sweet eyes dancing toward me down the street, 
Are with me evermore. 

118 



Annunciation 

My breath is balmy with thy clinging kiss, 

My hand is soft where thy soft fingers lay, 
And yet there is a something which I miss 
And mourn for night and day. 

Mine eyes ache for thee; God's heaven is so high 

We cannot see its singers, when thou dost 
With thy lark's voice make palpitant all the sky, 
I moan and pain the most. 

Because the hunger of my spirit runs 

Most swift in its swift asking after thee, 
I yearn through all the systems and the suns, 
But none doth answer me. 

O, might I with thee fondle for an hour! 

But now thou art too sacred; I must stand 

Silent and reverent: thou hast grown to power, 

And fitness and command. 

And I walk here. Thou art above me now: 

I may not longer teach thee anything. 
Thou dost not heed my kisses on thy brow, 
Nor any comforting. 

How changed! How changed! A little while ago 
And all the beautiful vast care was mine: 

IIQ 



Inspection 

Out from my bosom gushed the overflow 
Of sacrificial wine; 

And now thou art God's angel unto me. 

Thus His ways mix, and he is ever good. 
Reach me thy hand, Wife; we are held all three 
In his Infinitude. 



INSPECTION 

LET them rave and let them lie: 
What is that to you and I, 
Soul of mine — we see the sky. 

In these silences we hark 
Something singing, and do mark 
Something shining in the dark. 

Though we bleed beneath the knives 
Of the butcher, in our lives 
Something fragrant yet survives, 

Far beyond their blades of ill, 
Brooding very calm and still, 
Something which they can not kill. 



Inspection 

Though the worn flesh fail and waste, 
Though the lees have bitter taste, 
Though the past be interlaced, 

Well I know that at the last, 
When the sudden hurt is past, 
Solemn peace, serene and vast, 

In my heart will nestle so, 
That I shall not feel nor know 
Any harm or any woe. 

Sorrow is a little thing, 

Is it not, Soul, when we bring 

Conscience unto suffering ? 

Though at first we swooned in death, 
Yet when we had caught our breath, 
And were squared fourfold in faith, 

In our speech was no more moan, 
For our feet were firmly grown, 
And we did not stand alone. 

Comrade-soul, we see and hear 

Far beyond the mists unclear 

Of the dark world's doubt and fear. 

121 



Inspection 

Round our heads the great stars glow, 
We can hear Life's mystic flow, 
See its widening cycles grow. 

And the Sages and the Seers 

Of the immemorial years, 

Since the earth first groaned in tears, 

Speak unto us from the height, 
Summered in the Infinite, 
Where it evermore is light. 

Wherefore kissed by hallowing lips, 
Held in strong assuring grips 
Of anointed fellowships, 

What to us are gibe and frown ? 
What have we to cast us down? 
Soul, arise, assume thy crown: 

Turn thy features from the wall, 
Make thy stature proud and tall: 
See; the Lord is over all. 



122 



DENUNCIATION 

OUT upon this hollow worship 
Of the grandeur of our time; 
Out upon its little greatness, 

And the age's false sublime; 
Out upon the brainless braggarts 

Who are boasting evermore 
Of the World's emancipation 

From the thralling gloom of yore. 

What is mind save when it giveth 

Wider blessings, deeper good ? 
What is Love but that which liveth 

For a human brotherhood ? 
Who among us is so lowly 

That " himself " is but a name ? 
Whose the soul so pure and holy 

That it never fawned for fame ? 

Does no leper robe in purple ? 

Sits no villain on a throne ? 
Lives no Dives in this present, 

And is Lazarus unknown ? 
Hath the Truth a patient hearing ? 

Spurns no one a mighty thought? 

123 



Denunciation 

Passion, reason, impulse, feeling, 
Do we use them as we ought ? 

There are seething hells of torment, 

When the worm that never dies 
Revels in the writhing madness 

Of the doomed one's agonies: 
There are fields of crimson horror, 

There be Golgothas of woe, 
And a sea of sin and sorrow 

Surges wheresoe'er we go. 

Sycophants still sell their manhood, 

Human things that cringe and crawl; 
Purse-proud beggary still jostles 

Threadbare merit 'gainst the wall: 
But Life's Carnival moves onward 

To the music and the mirth; 
So the underlying madness 

Seemeth but as little worth. 

Out, then, on this hollow worship 

Of the grandeur of our times; 
Out upon our little greatness, 

And the age's false sublime: 
Whoso breathes the breath of boasting 

He is traitor to his trust; 
He alone who, toiling ever, 

Fainteth nevermore, is just. 

124 



VOICE OF PROGRESS 

BY Heaven! it is a shameful thing 
That, in this age of deepening might, 
There live so few whose souls dare cling 

Forever to the right! 
By Heaven! it is a crying sin 

That, in this hour of ripening thought. 
Where so much greatness lies within, 
So little is outwrought. 



The world is full of puling fools 

Who prate of love in sickening rhymes, 
Or bring stale tomes of trusty rules 

To curb the chafing times ; 
But where be they whose prophet-souls 

Outlooking on life's Ocean waves, 
Do warn us of the rocks and shoals 

Which else become our graves ? 

What care we for our father's creed ? 

What reck we of the ancient themes? 
Is Truth less true in newer deeds 

Than in decrepit dreams ? 
125 



Voice of Progress 

All honor to our brave old Sires — 
The unforgotten, worthy dead; 

Yet shall our loftier desires 
Be on their dulness fed ? 



Give us new Truth altho' it break 

Upon us with the lightning's flash! 
Give us new Truth! The Nations quake 

Beneath the shifting crash. 
Give us new Truth! Our souls despise 

This blinding rush of deadly strife. 
Past forms of Truth are present lies 

Which canker all our life. 



Therefore, new Truth! And let it burst 

Like red-hot thunderbolts on those 
In whom this fair world stands a curse 

With such a hell of woes! 
New Truth! Which ever more shall right 

Earth's wronged and patient multitude; 
And robe us all in rare delight 

Of deep and earnest good. 



126 



COMFORT 

ONE by one World's harms are smitten; 
One by one its ripe wrongs fall; 
One by one are carved and written 

Man's sure triumph over all. 
One by one the desert places 

Grow with green and gush with light, 
One by one God's finger traces 
Moons and stars across the night. 

One by one the cruel fetters 

Of the tyrant flesh slide off; 
One by one we learn the letters 

Of the alphabet of love. 
One by one the propped pretenses 

Of usurping falsehoods die; 
One by one new recompenses 

Fill our voids up in the sky. 

One by one our days of weaning 

From things earthly go toward 
Gorgeous harvest-days of gleaning 

In the full tracts of the Lord. 

127 



Comfort 

One by one the needs and gnawings 
Of old hungers fail and pass; 

One by one the Heaven's dear strawings 
Bless our fields of barren grass. 



Spite of weary months of sorrow, 

Spite of long and laden years, 
Bitter waitings for the morrow 

Wherein lieth joy for tears; 
Spite of tired hearts plowed with trouble, 

Spite of blighting and of blame, 
Spite of wastes of stones and stubble, 

Spite of paths of woe and shame, 



Spite of whatsoever evils 
Make the sacred places foul, 

Spite of whatsoever devils 
Dog the footsteps of the soul, 



Though the earth be still unshriven, 
Though the years seem still undone, 

Yet shall all, save man and Heaven, 
Pass and perish, one by one. 



128 



LIFE'S DOWER 

IN truth it is a lovely dower — 
This nerve and brain, and blood and bone, 
This leaping sense of kingly power 

In hearts which be full grown. 
In truth but they be glorious things — 

These loves and hates and deep desires, 
The thoughts that stride the lightning wings, 
The spirit's gleaming fires. 

'Tis a rare gift — this fresh warm life, 

This upward yearning of the eye, 
This soul that thrills unto the strife 

That rolls like thunder by. 
By Heaven! I can not understand 

How breathe these ideas of our time, 
These cowards of the lily hand, 

When life is so sublime. 



O, is it not a deep delight 

To hurl the death at crime and wrong, 
And, black and bloody with the fight, 

Grow stronger and more strong ? 

129 



Life's Dower 

To spur right on the weltering heaps 
Of cloven sins and gasping lies, 

And mark the quivering limbs and lips, 
The dull and glaring eyes ? 

O, brings it not a boundless bliss 

To snatch some pale and trembling truth 
From leprous lust whose hellish kiss 

Had poisoned all of youth ? 
To wash her feet and bathe her eyes, 

And smooth her wild dishevelled hair, 
And rain our hottest sympathies 

Like oil on her despair? 

Ay brothers! 'tis a blessed thing — 

This leaping life, this mounting blood, 
These subtile fires that do cling 

To God's infinitude: 
And, brothers, shall we live like drones, 

And let the rust gnaw out our night, 
While all the green earth's royal sons 

Form battle for the right? 



130 



THE INAUGURATION 

March Fourth, 1857 

VERY wanly to the eastward breaks the morning- 
cold and gray, 
Very spectral seem the shadowed people moving down 

the way, 
Very feebly will the sunlight chance upon the hills 
to-day. 

Very loudly do the silver trumpets ring throughout the 
street, 

Very grandly fall the measured marches of the throng- 
ing feet, 

Very hoarse are all the voices of the beings whom I 
meet. 



And the mighty thunderous echoes of the cannon crash 

and boom 
Like the roar of coming people speaking to us through 

the gloom, 
And the startling noises shake the pictures hanging in 

my room. 

131 



The Inauguration 

Very proudly float the silken colors on the Capitol, 
Very firmly does the old man tread across the Senate 

Hall, 
Very bland and very gracious is the smile he smiles on 

all. 

Lo! before our sacred Country's solemn altar see him 

stand, 
With the Book of flaming wisdom lying open in his 

hand, 
Swearing that in calm-souled justice he will judge and 

rule the land. 



And the eyes of staring thousands bend in wonder on 

the sight, 
And the hum of human voices cleaveth upward thro' 

the light, 
And the maddening waves of music drown the moan- 

ings of the night. 

Very courtly are the courtiers who have snatched the 

gifts of chance, 
Very brightly gleam the jewels of the movers in the 

dance, 
Very calmly from the fresco does the unknown hand 

advance. 

132 



The Inauguration 

And the naked fiery fingers write upon the ballroom 

wall: 
Lo! it is the song of many god-like spirits held in thrall, 
Suffering deadly damning scourges for the human rights 

of all. 



In the newer fields of Freedom, where its last apostles 

stood, 
Glare the serpent eyes of Hatred, lie the pools of clotted 

blood ; 
And a stifling cry of murder shudders at the gates of 

God. 



And the Mother with her children sits and starves upon 

the plain, 
As the ghastly gory gash that cast her husband with 

the slain 
Swings before her eyes forever, splitting thro' her heart 

and brain. 



And the smoke of burning hamlets blackens all the 
blessed air, 

While the savage shouts of reeking devils in their 
slaughter-lair 

Mingle with the shivering shrieks of trampled virgin- 
hood's despair. 

133 



The Inauguration 

And the clattering fetters fester on the brothers and the 

sons 
Who have battled for their Israel in the later Ajalons, 
And the purple darkly trickles down the swooning 

champions. 

Foemen smear upon our foreheads bitter marks of fear 
and shame; 

And they trail their leprous fingers o'er our Mother- 
Freedom's name, 

Till the hot blood driving through us sets our very 
breath aflame. 



Where is judgment that it lingers through the years 

thus overlong ? 
Where is Justice that she comes not fronting the 

accursed wrong, 
In whose choking grasp her righteous infant struggles 

to be strong ? 



O, not evermore with triumph shall inhuman feet be 

shod, 
Nor our heart's dewdrip forever from the slaver's evil 

rod, 
And not always shall hell's scoffing banner flout the 

skies of God. 

134 



A Soul's Despair 

For through all the mournful midnights, keeping solemn 

watch and ward, 
Stands the silent sleepless Angel noting all the deeds 

abhorred; 
And the hour of wrath and ransom ripens surely, saith 

the Lord! 



A SOUL'S DESPAIR 

I THINK God's ban is on me. I believe. 
For some unknown wrong which doth make me foul, 
His dread retributive thunders cling and cleave, 

Closer than Nessus' shirt did, to my soul, 
Which, like a hounded felon fugitive, 

Goes staggering over beds of burning coal, 
In lands where dragons howl and serpents hiss, 
And no green grass or blessed water is. 

All blessings which enrich the lives of men 

Dissolve from me like phantoms. Kith or kin, 

Wife, child, nor any one to love me, when 
I cry out from the coils of pain wherein 

My breath is strangled, have I; no, nor then, 
When the worst devils tempt me, can I win 

One pitying gleam from the stern heavens, which fling 

My prayer back to me as a leprous thing. 

135 



A Soul's Despair 

The benedictions which I give bring down 
On beings whom I love a woe instead; 

My smile is darker than a mother's frown; 
Whatever flowers I look upon fall dead, 

Blasted by my hot dreariness; if I crown 

A forehead with my kiss, straightway is spread 

A pall across it ; and whene'er I thirst 

God smites me backward, reeling and accurst. 



Before my lips are moistened, round my feet, 
Black horror on conflagration of hell-fire 

Scares off, with dread plenipotence of heat, 
Whatever tender human hands aspire 

To touch me softly, or what lips would greet, 
With confronting whispers of calm hopes, the dire 

Dumb aching of the life that only craves 

A little room among the Earth's dear graves; 



A little mound among the hillocks, where 
In quiet peace the sacred daisies grow, 

And all the noises that perplex the air, 

The sobs and shoutings eddying to and fro, 

World's harm, and hunger, and sublime despair, 
Unto the placid sleepers there below, 

Are as if such things were not, pillowed so 

In that great rest which but the dead can know. 

136 



A Soul's Despair 

O, happy dead! for whom the solemn feuds 
Of the immortal soul with flesh and clay, 

The infinite reaching toward far altitudes, 

The downward dragging lapses, the mad sway 

Of the wild passions, and the interludes 
In which all holy props are stricken 'way, 

And the world spins in darkness, have given place 

To an unruffled calm of heart and face. 



There wronged and wronging, conqueror and slave, 
All anguish over, in sweet concord lie, — 

The poet with the soaring wings that clave 
The subtle ether of the intensest sky; 

They whom the bitter poisoned arrows drave 
To desperation and were slain thereby; 

Young child and hoary grandsire: O, ye dead, 

How by the living are ye envied. 



Lo, also, through these heavy laden years, 
My feet have sought you reverently; not 

Because I shrank back from the strain that wears 
The heart out slowly, nor because the lot 

Assigned me was sown thickly with salt tears. 
In all my past my spirit never sought 

Surcease from sorrow by the trick of fear; 

What I have borne I still am strong to bear. 

137 



A Soul's Despair 

Nathless, because a voice I could not still 

Pleaded within me like a little child 
Against the sense of failure to fulfil 

My meanings, and the promptings that defiled 
The white ideals which I could not kill 

Nor thrust out from my vision; balked and foiled 
Alike in hopes that climbed and aims that crept, 
I sought if haply I might intercept 



My travail with sound sleeping. Therefore I 
(And partly that the cause was beautiful), 

When the thick smoke of battle quenched the sky 
And the air shrieked with flame, and terrible 

Lightnings of wrath blazed in the human eye, 

And the breath heaved with vengeance, and the dull 

Soul of the slave shot blossoming into fire, 

And cowards were kings beneath the sovran ire 



That crowned their foreheads royally, have been 
Among the foremost in the bloody gaps 

Where foot set fixedly to foot, and keen 
Opposing steel played, while the thunder 

Of the hot cannon made the hills careen 

To their uttermost foundations, and the laps 

Of the green valleys were piled deep with those 

Whom nevermore the bugle-call might rouse; 

138 



Death and Desolation 

Nor the torn banners, reared along the line, 
Set their blood tingling grandly in the shock 

Of charging hosts made drunken with the wine 
Compelled from grapes of that immortal stock 

God plants in all men's vineyards, for a sign 
That there is vintage in us which doth mock 

The mildew of all ages, and ferments 

As the wine which the gods drank in the rents. 



DEATH AND DESOLATION 

DEAD— DEAD! 
I shall never die I fear. 
O heart so sore bestead, 
O hunger never fed, 
O life uncomforted. 

It is drear, very drear! 
I am cold. 



The sunshine glorifying all the hills; 
The children dancing 'mong the daffodils; 
The thrush-like melodies of maidens' lips, 
Brooding thanksgiving o'er dear fellowships ; 
The calm compassions and benignities 

139 



Death and Desolation 

Of souls fast anchored in translucent seas; 
The visible radiance of the Invisible, 
Far glimpses of the Perfect Beautiful, 
Haunting the Earth with Heaven — they warm not me; 
The low-voiced winds breathe very soothingly, 
Yet I am cold. 



Years — years. 
So long the dread companionship of pain. 
So long the slow compression of the brain, 
So long the bitter famine and the drouth, 
So long the ache for kisses on the mouth, 
So long the straining of hot tearless eyes 
In backward looking upon Paradise, 
So long tired feet dragged faltering and slow, 
So long the solemn sanctity of woe\ 

Years — years. 

Perhaps 
There was a void in Heaven, which only she 
Of all God's saintliest could fill perfectly; 
Perhaps for too close clinging — too much sense 
Of loving and of Love's Omnipotence, 
I was stripped bare of gladness, like a tree 
By the black thunder blasted. It may be 
I was not worthy — that some inner flaw, 
Which but the eye of the Omniscient saw, 

140 



Death and Desolation 

Ran darkling through me, making me unclean. 
I know not; but I know that what hath been, 
The thrill, the rapture, the intense repose 
Which but the passion-sceptered spirit knows, 
The heart's great halo lighting up the days, 
The breath all incense and the lips all praise, 
Can be no more forever; that what is. 
Drear suffocation in a drear abyss, 
Lean hands outstretcht toward the dark profound, 
Starved ears vain listening for a tender sound, 
The set lips choking back the desolate cry 
Wrung from the soul's forlornest agony, 
Will last until the props of Being fall, 
And the green grave's deep quiet covers all. 
Perhaps the violets will blossom then 
O'er me as sweetly as o'er other men. 
Perhaps. 

It is most sad, 
This crumbling into chaos and decay. 
My heart aches; and I think I shall go mad 

Some day — some day. 



141 



HYMN OF PITTSBURG 

MY father was a mighty Vulcan; 
I am Smith of the land and sea; 
The cunning spirit of Tubal-Cain 

Came with my marrow to me. 
I think great thoughts, strong-winged with steel, 

I coin vast iron acts, 
And orb the impalpable dreams of seers 
Into comely, lyric facts. 

I am Monarch of all the Forges, 

I have solved the riddle of fire, 
The Amen of Nature to cry of Man, 

Answers at my desire. 
I search with the subtle soul of flame 

The heart of the rocky Earth, 
And hot from my anvils the prophecies 

Of the miracle-years leap forth. 

I am swart with the soots of my furnace, 

I drip with the sweats of toil; 
My fingers throttle the savage wastes, 

I tear the curse from the soil. 
I fling the bridges across the gulfs 

That hold us from the To-Be, 
And build the roads for the bannered march 

Of crowned humanity. 

142 



ENTREATY 

"Written on leaving New York for Kansas in 1856 

SOMETIMES when the wind goes roaring 
Thro' the city's streets and lanes. 
And the homeless night is pouring 

Blind tears on your window panes; 
When you shudder for the sailor, 

Cast on the moaning sea, 
And the stranger in the forest — 
Then, beloved, think of me. 

Sometimes when the poet's verses 

Thrill you with a sudden awe, 
And dim, yearning depths of wonder 

Throb on every breath you draw; 
When his mighty anthem singing 

Of our high humanity, 
Parts your lips with fear and trembling — 

Then, beloved, think of me. 

Sometimes when you chance on stories 

Of a calm-eyed little band, 
Who, in frost and fire and famine, 

Were still faithful to the land; 

143 



Expectancy 

Who, through all the bloody tortures 
Of a damning tyranny, 

Bore the draggled robes of Freedom- 
Then, beloved, think of me. 

Think of me! I hear the voices 

Of the struggle sweeping on, 
And I feel my mounting spirit 

Leap within me to be gone; 
But beneath no crown of sorrow, 

In no pride of victory, 
Can my heart forget its yearnings — 

So, beloved, think of me. 



EXPECTANCY 

I WAIT in the street for my darling. 
Strange that I have not marked before 
The wonderful lights which clasp and crown 
The brows of the people passing down 

The street I stand in, and that the roar 
Of the crowded marts and thronging ways 

Swell with a musical resonance — 
Traffic blossoming into praise 

With a divine significance, 
As I wait in the street for my darling. 

144 



Expectancy 

I wait in the street for my darling: 

How changed the shops and houses are; 
Only this morning they stood there stark 
In the sooty vapors, grim and dark, 

Their windows flinging a sudden glare; 
While now it seems that the brick walls glow, 

And now it seems that the windows shine 
With an almost human overflow 

Of happy gladness — which is the sign, 
That I wait in the street for my darling. 



I wait in the street for my darling: 

There's a smell of purity in the air, 
There's a flush of splendor along the skies, 
There's a sweeter look in the people's eyes, 

There's a sense of beauty everywhere; 
There's a hymn in my heart, and on my feet 

Winged sandals of blessed light; 
And I know by a touch so soft and sweet 

Of a tender hand, so fair and white, 
I have met my love — my darling. 



145 



FAREWELL 

GREAT tears are glistening in my eyes, 
Washed hither by the large excess 
Of your full-hearted lovingness, 
And thy soul's meek serenities. 



My spirit overflows its banks 

With yearning that I can not stay; 
And yet my lips can only say, 
" Dear friend, I give thee many thanks 

" For beauty of thy quiet speech, 
The happy calmness of thy face, 
Thy sweet smile lighting up the place 
With pleasant warmth for all and each; 

" The voice that sounded in my ears 
With such a strange serenity, 
As though my mother spoke to me, 
Across the silence of the years " 



146 



THE SPIRIT OF REST 

OH, come to me then when the Spirit of Rest 
Breathes soft over my soul like the breath of a 
dove, 
And the pride and passion that burns in my breast, 
Lie asleep 'neath the wings of the Angel of Love. 

When my heart wanders back to the mystical past, 
Where the sunlight of pleasure fell full on the hours, 

And a gust of glad memories, swelling and vast, 
Sweep over my soul as a whirlwind of flowers — 

O! then as the brightest, where all things are bright, 
Comes back the remembrance, dear sister, of thee; 

And a calmness of bliss, like the calmness of light, 
Leads my soul as the moon leads the passionate sea. 



MARRIAGE HYMN 

IN the still chambers of our souls 
We softly walk alway! 
We let no tumult enter in, 
No noise by night or day; 
But listen very reverently 
To what the voices say. 

147 



A Birthday Lily 

A touch upon our clasped hands, 

Light as a falling hair; 

The sacred sweetness on us blows 

Of newer breaths of air, 

And in our great and holy calm 

We know that they are there. 



A BIRTHDAY LILY 

IN May, the rosebud of the flowering year, 
A stainless lily came; 
Earth shone with light, and every starry sphere 
Burned with diviner flame. 

Art, brooding o'er her large beatitudes, 

Felt a creative thrill 
Run tingling through her splendid varying moods 

And consentaneous will. 

Song, praised amid her high interpretings, 
Knew a seraphic fire 
Ache in her bosom, and her startled wings 
Shook music as a lyre. 

And round the awful soul of virginhood 

A whiter glory played, 
And babes unto their mothers crawled and cooed, 

More softly unafraid. 

148 



A GOLDEN TRESS 

AH me! how slight a circumstance 
May move our being's deepest springs. 
Ah me ! how simple-seeming chance 

Can clutch forgotten passion strings 
And wake the old remembered tones, 

Till memory maddens to the stir, 
And all the past's oblivious bones 
Leap living from the sepulcher! 

I found to-day a golden tress 

Of one who has been dead for years, 
And such a sudden loneliness 

Fell on my heart and on the spheres, 
I well-nigh feared the Christ of faith 

Had gathered all his sunshine in 
And left us nothing but the wraith 

Of our sad selfishness and sin. 



The seat beneath the hazel bougns, 

The woodlands where our feet did stray, 

The quick warm thrill of whispered vows 
That wore the precious time away; 

149 



A Pictured Face 

The twilight depths of those dear eyes, 
The reverent lips, the saintly brow, 

The Eden hours of low replies, — 
Beloved! how they haunt me now! 

Almost my heart had bridged across 

The solemn waters which did roll 
Between my fearful sense of loss 

And every other human soul; 
But nothing now surmounts the waves 

That wash my barren island shore, 
Moaning like dead hopes from their graves — 

Ah, nevermore! Ah, nevermore! 



A PICTURED FACE 

NOT quite a faultless face; 
Yet something of a nameless grace, 
A radiance from a higher place, 



About the comfort-giving eyes, 
And brown hair worn Madonna wise 
Across the tender forehead, lies, 

150 



A Pictured Face 

And round the lips that are so calm; 
While loving words of healing balm 
Float like the singing of a psalm, 

Sung where the singing censers go 

Before the altar, to and fro, 

And all the people's heads are low, 

Awing the stormful turbulence 

Of my rough manhood, with the sense 

Of meekness, and the affluence 

Of that high-heartedness that springs 
From Martyr-wisdom, and the things 
Learned in vast silent communings; 

With that pure sanctity that broods 
Divine above our changeful moods, 
Turning to uses and to goods 

All loves, and hates, and smiles, and tears, 
And downward from celestial spheres 
Streams all along our earthly years. 

With folded reverential hands, 
1 look up to her where she stands, 
Interpreting the large commands 

151 



A Pictured Face 

With which her days are held and led, 
And which with glory and with dread 
Have crowned the soul they followed. 

I look up to her, and I know 

That years may come and years may go, 

And life may ebb and life may flow; 

Yet still above the sweep and surge 
Of pain and passion that doth urge 
The hot time upon horrors' verge, 

She will behold the Hand displayed, 
She will stand ever undismayed; — 
Wherefore my heart is not afraid. 



INDIRECTION 

FAIR are the flowers and the children, but their 
subtle suggestion is fairer; 
Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps 

it is rarer; 
Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that pre- 
cedes it is sweeter; 
And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning QM/i 
mastered the meter. 

152 



Indirection 

Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the 

growing; 
Never a river that flows, but a majesty scepters the 

flowing; 
Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than 

he did enfold him, 
Nor ever a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer hath 

foretold him. 



Back of the canvas that throbs the painter is hinted and 

hidden; 
Into the statue that breathes the soul of the sculptor is 

bidden; 
Under the joy that is felt lie the infinite issues of 

feeling; 
Crowning the glory revealed is the glory that crowns 

the revealing. 



Great are the symbols of being, but that which is sym- 

boled is greater; 
Vast the create and beheld, but vaster the inward 

creator; 
Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift 

stands the giving; 
Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive 

nerves of receiving. 

153 



Advice Gratis 

Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the 

doing; 
The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart 

of the wooing; 
And up from the pits where these shiver, and up from 

the heights where those shine, 
Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the 

essence of life is divine. 



ADVICK GRATIS 

DO you mean what you say ? Did I hear aright ? 
Were you in earnest or in sport ? 
In love with a poet ? Are you quite 

At odds with sanity, to assert 
That you, with beauty, and wit, and grace, 

Instead of the station these might buy, 
Have smilingly set your feet and face 

Toward paths where such low choosings lie ? 

A poet— a maker of verses — one 

Who daily coins, for his daily bread, 

The blood of his heart in rhymes that run 
His brain to fever with fear and dread, 

154 



Advice Gratis 

Lest that he mar, in speaking it, 

The tone of the Voice that comes to him 

Somewhere out from the infinite, 

Somewhere out from the vast and dim. 

You need not answer; I know your thought. 

You tell me that, since there must be those 
Whose lips, like the throats of birds, are wrought 

Chiefly for singing, it follows close 
That God, attuning them to such pitch, 

Accepts their songs for service — thus 
Making our sneers at a soul on which 

He has laid his pressure perilous. 

And this in a sense is true. But this 

Is also mystical: we should take 
The world in the gross; we must not miss 

Of ease and elegance for the sake 
Of dreams and dreamers; and I opine 

It would strike fresh heat in your poet's verse 
If you- dropped some aloes into his wine — 

They write supremely under a curse. 

Will that invisible truth of things 

Which shines on your minstrel compensate 

The lack of the visible comfortings, 
The tangible gifts and goods that wait 

155 



Advice Gratis 

On stocks and dividends ? Which are best — 

These vagabond inspirations, or 
Hard cash in hand, and the sense in the breast 

That you have gained what you bargained for? 

It is good, no doubt, that a man should be 

Cast in such weird and singular mold 
As dowers his vision with power to see 

God's splendors flaming, where you behold 
Only the flaring of lighted gas; 

But with a husband we demand 
(Letting the gift of prophecy pass) 

The coin that is current in the land. 



Therefore I should advise you, dear, 

To give your lyrical vagrant such 
Sufficient hint of a prudent fear, 

As — without wounding him overmuch— 
May serve to smite his insolent hopes 

Down to levels of lesser range; 
Sending him back to his crowding tropes 

Wiser and sadder for that change. 



156 



AN OLD MAN'S IDYL 

BY the waters of Life we sat together, 
Hand in hand in the golden days 
Of the beautiful early summer weather, 

When skies were purple and breath was praise; 
When the heart kept tune to the carol of birds, 

And the birds kept tune to the songs which ran 
Through shimmer of flowers on grassy swards, 
And trees with voices /Eolian. 

By the rivers of Life we walked together, 

I and my darling unafraid; 
And lighter than any linnet's feather 

The burdens of being on us weighed. 
And love's sweet miracles o'er us threw 

Mantles of joy outlasting time, 
And up from the rosy morrows grew 

A sound that seemed like a marriage chime. 

In the gardens of Life we strayed together; 

And the luscious apples were ripe and red, 
And the languid lilac and honeyed heather 

Swooned with the fragrance which they shed. 
And under the trees the angels walked, 

And up in the air a sense of wings 
Awed us tenderly while we talked 

Softly in sacred communings. 

157 



An Old Man's Idyl 

In the meadows of Life we strayed together, 

Watching the waving harvests grow; 
And under the benison of the Father 

Our hearts, like the lambs, skipped to and fro. 
And the cowslips, hearing our low replies, 

Broidered fairer the emerald banks, 
And glad tears shone in the daisies' eyes, 

And the timid violets glistened thanks. 



Who was with us, and what was round us, 

Neither myself nor my darling guessed; 
Only we knew that something crowned us 

Out from the heavens with crowns of rest; 
Only we knew that something bright 

Lingered lovingly where we stood. 
Clothed with the incandescent light 

Of something higher than humanhood. 



O the riches Love doth inherit! 

Ah, the alchemy which doth change 
Dross of body and dregs of spirit 

Into sanctities rare and strange! 
My flesh is feeble and dry and old, 

My darling's beautiful hair is gray; 
But our elixir and precious gold 

Laugh at the footsteps of decay. 

158 



The Prize Fight 

Harms of the world have come unto us, 

Cups of sorrow we yet shall drain; 
But we have a secret which doth show us 

Wonderful rainbows in the rain. 
And we hear the tread of the years move by, 

And the sun is setting behind the hills; 
But my darling does not fear to die, 

And I am happy in what God wills. 

So we sit by our household fires together, 

Dreaming the dreams of long ago: 
Then it was balmy summer weather, 

And now the valleys are laid in snow. 
Icicles hang from the slippery eaves; 

The wind blows cold, — 'tis growing late; 
Well, well! we have garnered all our sheaves, 

I and my darling, and we wait. 



THE PRIZE FIGHT 

EIGHTEEN hundred and sixty years 
Of Christward leverage under the spheres; 
And what is the thing that now appears ? 

Troops of golden prophecies come 
Up from the bountiful martyrdom 
That struck the jeering world so dumb. 

159 



The Prize Fight 

Wherefore, far on the outer verge 

Of tangled cycles of sorrow and scourge, 

Where, mid the passionate ages' surge, 

I catch the shining of those white days 
For which the universe moans and prays — 
Soft hours wherein is no dispraise. 

But what of beautiful and of sweet 

Doth the earth, made green by touch of His feet, 

Yield to the Holy Paraclete? 

The lips of a glorious brotherhood 

Fling to the jasper gates of God 

A cry that sounds as a voice of blood. 

Under the clear compassionate skies 
Two men glare in each other's eyes; 
And yet they are not enemies- 
Amethyst pure are their affluent veins, 
Royal their strength of loins and reins, 
Dark their ghastly gashes and stains. 

Poet, whose super-sensual ken 
Cleaves to the souls of things and men, 
Where was your scorn of scorning then ? 

1 60 



The Prize Fight 

Priest, in the shadow of the Cross, 
Naming the things of the earth for dross, 
Why did you stand at such utter loss ? 



Mother-queen of the isles and seas, 

Throned in purple regalities, — 

You, with your children round your knees, 



Singing of love and of innocence — 
Where was your law's just vehemence, 
And where your own large woman-sense? 



The poet withheld his awful breath; 
The craven priest was still as death; 
He did not whisper of Nazareth. 



The queen sate silent: the strong law slept: 

And a roar of horrible laughter leapt 

From the throat of hell to the heavens that wept. 



Eighteen hundred and sixty years 

Of Christward leverage under the spheres; 

And this is the thing that now appears. 



161 



GOING HOME 

I THINK that in the time of year 
When all the earth is white with snow, 
And men run shivering to and f i o 
About the frozen hemisphere; 

When all the lakes are fast asleep, 
And all the forest trees are bare, 
And cold amid the icy air 

The pale skies can no longer weep, 

I will gird up my loins to make 
A journey o'er the sluggish seas, 
That, kneeling at my mother's knees, 

I may a little while forsake 

This deadly time of uncontrol, 
The weary toiling of the brain, 
The voice that like a moan of pain 

And darkness lingers in my soul. 

There are fine yearnings in the breath, 
Deep pulses in the silent heart. 
Which, cast aside or rent apart, 

Like poor gashed veins will bleed to death. 

162 



A Man's Name 

And I, who am sore parched with drought, 
Have strangely hungered overmuch 
For Father's slightest finger-touch, 

And kisses from my mother's mouth. 

I see two sister-faces shine 

Around my footsteps more and more; 

And on the river and the shore 
I hold a brother's hand in mine. 

So, when the early sunsets come, 

And, blazing on the household hearth. 
The ruddy yule-logs sparkle forth, 

I will go forward to my home. 



A MAN'S NAME 

In memoriam, David Simmons, Railroad Engineer. Died Febru- 
ary 6th, 1871, near New Hamburgh, N. Y. 

THROUGH the packed horror of the night 
It rose up like a star, 
And sailed into the infinite, 
Where the immortals are. 

" Down brakes ! " One splendid hard-held breath, 
An lo! an unknown name 
Strode into sovereignty from death, 
Trailing a path of flame. 

163 



A Man's Name 

" Jump!" — " I remain." — No needless word, 
No vagueness in his breast; 
Along his blood the swift test stirred — 
He answered to the test, 

Gripped his black peril like a vice, 

And, as he grappled, saw 
That life is one with sacrifice. 

And duty one with law. 

Home: — but his feet grew granite fast; 

Wife: — yet he did not reel; 
Babes: — ah, they tugged! but to the last 

He stood there true as steel. 

Above his own heart's lovingness, 

Above another's crime, 
Above the immitigable stress, 

Above himself, and time, 

Smote loving comfort on the cheek, 

Gave quibbling Fear the lie, 
Taught ambling fluence how to speak, 

And brave men how to die. 

Who said the time of kings was gone ? 

Who said our Alps were low, 
And not by God's airs blown upon ? 

Behold it is not so. 

164 



The Children 

Out from the palace and the hut 
Dwarf-fronted, lame of will, 

Limp our marred Joves and giants — but 
Sceptered for mastery still, 

And clothed with puissance to quell 

Whatever mobs of shame 
Are leagued within us, with such spell 

As David Simmons' name. 



THE CHILDREN 

DO you love me, little children ? 
O sweet blossoms that are curled 
(Life's tender morning glories) 

'Round the casement of the world ! 
Do your hearts climb up toward me, 

As my own heart bends to you, 
In the beauty of your dawning 
And the brightness of your dew ? 

When the fragrance of your faces 
And the rhythm of your feet, 

And the incense of your voices 
Transform the sullen street, 

165 



The Children 

Do you see my soul move softly 
Forever where you move, 

With an eye of benediction 
And a guarding hand of love ? 

O my darlings! I am with you 

In your trouble, in your play, 
In your sobbing and your singing, 

In your dark and in your day, 
In the chambers where you nestle, 

In the hovels where you lie, 
In the sunlight where you blossom, 

And the blackness where you die. 

Not a blessing broods above you, 

But it lifts me from the ground; 
Not a thistle-barb doth sting you, 

But I suffer with the wound; 
And a chord within me trembles 

To your lightest touch or tone, 
And I famish when you hunger, 

And I shiver when you moan. 

Can you tell me, little children, 

Why it is I love you so ? 
Why I'm weary with the burthens 

Of my sad and dreary woe ? 

166 



Esoteric 

Do the myrtle and the aloes 
Spring blithely from one tree ? 

Yet I love you, O my darlings! 
Have you any flowers for me ? 

I have trodden all the spaces 

Of my solemn years alone, 
And have never felt the cooing 

Of a babe's breath near my own, 
But with more than father passion, 

And with more than mother pain, 
I have loved you, little children: 

Do you love me back again ? 



ESOTERIC 

ART is nne, but love is finer; 
Can you paint a soul? 
What if beauty is diviner, 
Fragrant, or the whole ? 

Song is sweet, but love is sweeter; 

Was there ever hymn 
That for compass and for meter, 

Bowed the Seraphim ? 

167 



A Woman's Breath 

Thought is great, but love is greater; 

Who can search out truth ? 
Love alone is revelator, 

Love is love, in sooth. 



A WOMAN'S BREATH 

"I certainly should not advise any poor man to marry me."- 
[Frorn a letter.] 

WHAT fatal mastery of indirection 
Lurks in a woman's breath; 
A courteous phrase, a gracious genuflexion, 
And hope is stabbed to death. 



And love moans reeling down the vast abysses 

Of horrible despair, 
Maddened by memory of immortal kisses, 

And sounds of tones that were. 

The torture of the ghostly touch of fingers 

That hold you passion-tight, 
And torment of a lilac dawn that lingers 

About your lurid night; 

168 



A Voice from the Condemned 

While, over all these desolations, 

She walks in serene guise, 
With not a shiver in her heart's pulsations, 

Nor in her level eyes. 



A VOICE FROM THE CONDEMNED 

I THINK, by the streak of gray 
Just over my window-bars, 
And the waning of the stars, 
It must be the break of day. 

I hear the murmur of words 

Close by on the courtyard stones; 
I guess 'tis the workmen's tones, 

As they fix the scaffold boards. 

In three hours I shall be dead — 
Last week I hiked my knife 
To the heart of a rich man's life, 

And spent his money for bread. 

A dozen summers ago 

(I was then a child, cast forth 
Without a friend on the earth) 

He struck me a bitter blow, 

169 



A Voice from the Condemned 

A blow and a coward's curse, 

When I asked for a crust of food; 
And so I remembered his mood, 

And settled the wrong with worse. 

My vengeance was that which waits; 
So I let him fatten and fume 
Till I thought him ripe for doom, 

When I kicked him out to the fates. 



A murderer, ay! — who cares? 

I let out the blood of his heart — 

So, having acted my part, 
I leave you not unawares. 

He sowed the seed in my soul, 
And he reaped the ripened grain; 
No doubt, were he here again, 

He would speedily give the dole. 

I shall meet him to-day at seven — 
And yet, is it really well 
To strike me at once to hell, 

When both might have gone to heaven? 



170 



NOBILITY 

CAN'T man be noble unless he be great, 
With a patrimonial hall; 
And heaps of gold and vast estate, 
And vassals at his call ? 

Can't man be noble unless there be 

A title to his name, 
Unless he live in luxury 

Or loll in the seats of fame ? 

Can't man be noble unless his voice 

Be heard in the senate band; 
Or his eye flash bright and his words breathe light, 

Through all his native land ? 

Ah yes! at the forge and the weaver's loom, 

As well as in hall of state, 
At the desk and in the cottage room, 

There are noble ones and great. 

They are springing up on every side, 

In hamlet and in town; 
Where the stream pours and ocean roars, 

They are wreathing a laurel crown. 

171 



Reconciliation 

They are weaving the mighty robe of truth, 
And bold are the throws they make, 

As they are teaching age and guilt 
Oppressive bonds to break. 

Yes, these are the noble and the great, 
Who will shine at a distant day, 

Where titled ones of hall and state, 
Shall have been but far away. 



RECONCILIATION 

NO man can climb so close to God 
But needeth to beseech Him, 
Nor lapse so far to devilhood 

That mercy can not reach him. 
We stand, with all, on level ground. 

In equal human fashion, 
Encompassed by the blue profound 
Of infinite compassion! 

Shake hands then on the rusted swords, 

O blood-bedraggled nation! 
Smite down the past with sweet accord 

Of reconciliation; 



Fragments 

Walk brotherly and lovingly 
The upward paths of duty, 

And let the kings and tyrants see 
A people's kingly beauty! 



FRAGMENTS 

CLASPED by the glory of her face 
Death looked so beautiful and meek, 
I knew at once he came to seek, 
For God's sweet offices of grace, 
The soul that lately passed to Him 

Thro' this white gate of blessed flowers, 
Which now I wet with tearful showers 
While waiting for the Seraphim. 



I love the starlight so with a love 

Strange as the heart of woman! In my soul 

There are no feelings lying so deep, 

Save the yearnings toward my mother: I do mind 

How, when the nights were gloomy, I have watched 

With earnest patience waiting for the light 

Shining behind the dark of driving clouds; 

173 



Fragments 

And I remember how the unconscious tears 
Would tremble on my eyelids, when a star 
Looked on me thro' the tempest. T'was a joy 
Just like my joy in childhood, when I felt 
The sweet eyes of my mother touch my soul, 
And her lips kiss my forehead; O, the stars! 



I know that when the shadows deepen, and the world 

Goes like an infant to its proper rest, 

The human heart grows holier, and the soul 

Speaks with a purer language, and a voice 

Which is not of the noonday, makes us thrill 

With its strange subtleties; 

Some fibers in all hearts hold fast to heaven; — 

I could not live without the stars. 



Here she stood 
With her white finger pointing to the skies, 
Thick sown with majesties as earth is sown 
With troubled human love ! " Walter," she said, 
" These are my witnesses "; then burst in tears 
Like a full cloud, pouring out its heart in rain. 



174 



Sentinel Thoughts 

She kissed me, my beautiful darling, 

I drank the delight of her lips; 
The universe melted to ether, 

Mortality stood in eclipse. 
A spirit of light stood before me, 

I heard a far rustle of wings; 
The kings of the earth were as beggars, 

And the beggars of earth were as kings. 



SENTINEL THOUGHTS 

(Unfinished) 

I PACE my beat in silentness 
Of dream, and nurse and ponder, 
Re-live the days of battle stress, 
Re-tread the fields of thunder; 
Re-walk the wastes where carnage gave 

His mad hounds blood for water, 
Review the cities of the grave, 
The bivouacs of slaughter. 

I see the desolated homes, 

The ruined altar places, 
The symbols of dread martyrdoms 

Written in women's faces. 

175 



Magdalena 

I hear the sonless father's sighs, 
The bereaved mother praying, 

The little children's sobbing cries, 
Orphaned amid their playing. 

I mark the myriad souls that swoon 
Beneath war's cruel splinters; 

The widowed lives that dwell alone, 
In everlasting winters. 



MAGDALENA 

WHEN a poor forsaken sister, 
Whom we name a fearful name, 
From the leprous life that kissed her, 

Shudders back, all bound with shame; 
When her weary soul is yearning 

For the light of God's own skies, 
And, far off, a dim discerning 
Of a purer morrow lies; 

Do not thou who, less believing, 

Loving less, hast conquered more, — 

Do not thrust her backward grieving 
To the life she lived before; 

176 



Magdalena 

Do not pass her by and whisper 
Bitter words of scorn and pain; 

Make her crisp, hot heart grow crisper, 
And the red hell burn again. 

Who art thou that passest sentence 

On a bleeding human soul ? 
Could'st thou drain full-dregged repentance 

If no love were in the bowl ? 
Is not she, poor, stricken weeper, 

Loved of Heaven, alike with thee ? 
Fool! thy pride hath thrust thee deeper 

Than thy sister — Pharisee! 

Nighest to the great, calm splendor 

Of our first poor innocence, 
Is the halo, sadly tender, 

Of a warm heart's penitence. 
Wherefore, brothers, since transgression 

Shrouds each spirit like a pall, 
Is not meek and full confession 

Best and noblest for us all ? 

Go! and when, proud soul, thou learnest 

Thou, and I, and all are one, 
Then shall beauty, deep and earnest, 

Greet thee like a newer love. 

177 



Mother Remembrance 

And the love that lights thy features, 
In thy wider eyes should be 

Unto all God's living creatures 
Even as it is to thee. 



MOTHER REMEMBRANCE 

AS soon as the clock in the hall strikes eight, 
'Twill be thirteen lonely years 
Since my heart's lost darling, fair-haired Kate, 

Looked into these eyes of tears. 
I did not dream when she went away 

To pass a month in the town, 
She would make such a long and bitter stay, 
And so sink my spirit down. 



I only thought of the city sights, 

Of the things that she would learnj 
Of the morrow's ever-new delights, 

And her womanly return. 
I only thought how my life would gush 

When I kissed her lips again; 
I did not dream of the weary crush 

Of these thirteen years of pain. 

178 



Mother Remembrance 

God pity thee, my beautiful child, 

For the love which thou has spilt; 
And the pure white hopes thou hast defiled 

With thy fearful spots of guilt! 
God pity thee, in thy gilded halls 

Of sorrow and shame and sin, 
Where the shadows of death forever falls 

On the lips of all within. 



There is no one now when your temples leap, 

And the fire shoots through your brain, 
To fold you close in the sweet warm sleep 

You will never know again! 
There is no one now when the nights are long, 

And the tempests walk the skies, 
To sing you the happy fireside song 

We have sung with thankful eyes. 



Do you never think of our dreary home ? 

Of your father's thin, gray hair? 
Of the voice we miss in the little room, 

And my broken-hearted prayer ? 
Do you never wring your delicate hands, 

Nor clench your shuddering teeth, 
When your soul's shrill whispers stir the brands 

Of the burning hell beneath ? 

179 



Nameless 

Have you never wished you could come at night, 

When all in the house was still, 
And watch us sit by the candle light, 

From the little window-sill ? 
To lift the latch of the half-closed door ? 

And, with a passionate cry, 
Kneel down at our tottering feet once more, 

And fall on our necks, and die ? 



Come back, my beautiful desolate one, 

Come back to thy native place, 
Where the healing air may breathe upon 

The hurt of thy haggard face! 
There's a vacant bed and an empty chair, 

In the silent room above; 
Come back, dear child, to thy father's care 

And my all-forgiving love. 



NAMELESS 

JUDGE, I plead guilty; he speaks the truth: 
I am what he says, and what you see. 
So old in a damned, unhallowed youth, 

That your wrinkled years seem young to me. 

1 80 



Nameless 

Don't preach — don't lecture. I know it all: 
The easy canting, the fluent words, 

The solemn drivel of text from Paul, 

And a mangled phrase or two of the Lord's. 

Moreover you err if you suppose 

That even a harlot, soaked in sin, 
Slides down the darkness without some throes 

Of the marred meek purities within. 
O sir! you wrong even our disgrace, 

To think that we never wail and cry 
Out from the foulness with lifted face 

To an awful Something up in the sky. 

Do you think I never dream of home, 

Of a weary man with whitening hair? 
Of a missing voice in a vacant room, 

And the sobs a-choke in a woman's prayer? 
That nothing has ever prompted flight, 

Swift as my hungry feet could fly, 
Fatherward, motherward — that I might 

Fall on their necks, break heart, and die? 

My God, my God! when the masked brows must 
Be clothed with a false forged radiance, while 

The bloom of the soul is burnt to dust, 
And under a fabricated smile 

181 



Nameless 

Dead ghosts of murdered innocence glare 

Devils from their accusing eyes, 
And a babe's chirrup thrown on the air 

Scares like thunder out of the skies; 

When the sweet sanctities set to guard 

The inner whiteness from outer stain, 
Tricked of their holy watch and ward, 

Moan and madden in heart and brain; 
And a howling fury hunts and hounds 

Wherever a clean thought hides away; 
And a dreadful voice of dooming sounds 

Through the haunted chambers night and day; 

And a Something mocks you w T hen you laugh, 

And a Something jeers you when you weep; 
And hell-fire lurks in the wine you quaff, 

And a fiend grins at you in your sleep; 
And a coiling horror sucks you down 

Through a black and bottomless abyss — 
Judge, do you think your legal frown 

Can augur punishment worse than this ? 

Bah, what a horrible fool am I 

To talk like this to a man like you! 

Someday the toughest of us must die, 

And we shall be sifted, through and through, 

182 






A Voice from a City Cellar 

Sifted and sorted. Judge, have you thought 

That possibly to the sorted, then, 
Something that now is may be naught, 

When the cowards' shrieks steam up from men ? 



A VOICE FROM A CITY CELLAR 

IT is true I am very poor, 
And yet I love my child 
With a love as deep and wild, 
As full of the brimming o'er 

Of its passionate bursting waves, 
As if silver handles were on my door 
And my house were filled with slaves. 

Do you think that because I live 

In a cellar underground, 

From poverty's yelping hound 
A sort of fugitive, 

That the angels never come 
And look with love on the love I give ? 

Do you think my heart is dumb ? 

I know I can hardly clothe 
My dear babe's body and feet, 
While scarcely ever we eat 

A meal which you would not loathe; 

183 



A Voice from a City Cellar 

But I tell you, milk-faced miss, 
That e'er God severs our double growth, 
He must send more pain than this. 

I wash his hands and his face 
And patch up his trowser rents, 
Then send him to gather pence 

From men in the market place. 

He comes home covered with dirt, 

But think you I think him less in grace 
Because he hasn't a shirt ? 

Our bed in the corner there 

(That's it, the bundle of straw 

Which the rats have begun to gnaw — 
'Tis rather a poor affair) 

Is a resting place for two 
Who own just as much of the boundless air 

As our Father giveth to you. 

What, going? well, go; and learn 

That the living infinite spark 

Shot out in the mighty dark 
May light up a cellar and burn 

In a beggar's heart and eyes, 
With as fixed a flame as thou canst discern 

In thy shining, affluent skies. 

184 



SONG OF THE OUTCAST 

HOW coldly the shuddering night wind moans 
In gusts thro' the glimmering street, 
And how drearily echo the dismal stones 

To the tread of my listless feet. 
And the hollow voice of the sobbing rain 

And the talk of the sounding sea 
Seem only as terrible tongues of pain 
That hiss like the fiends at me. 

" I can bear the horrible fiery rain 

Men pelt from their scornful eyes, 
And stand untouched by the mournful mien 

That comes from the good and wise; 
But, oh! when the passing rain and wind 

And the very ocean's swell 
Do burn and blast in my inmost mind, 

I could wish myself in hell. 

" I am very glad that mother died 
Ere the desolation came, 
When, drunken with flaming dreams of pride, 
I clasped to my soul the shame. 

185 



Song of the Outcast 

Thank God! Thank God! she is dead and gone, 
For 't would splinter her heart in twain 

To know that the leper they spit upon 
Drew life from her blood and brain. 

" I wonder if father loves me yet, 

And whether the blessed child, 
The life that rose on the life that set, 

Still lives, and is undefiled. 
O, mother! I think I see her now 

With the new babe on her breast, 
The glory clasping her pure white brow 

And the angel bringing rest. 

" How, many a time, when my drenched soul swims 

In bitter and blinding tears, 
And there comes a sound of tender hymns 

Across these blasphemous years, 
Do I rush forth into the great dark night 

And cover my burning face, 
To shut from my vision the ghastly blight 

I have breathed in my native place. 

" O dark, dark past, must it always glare 
With dreadful and damning eye ? 
Do none of the beautiful angels care 
For such fallen ones as I ? 

186 



Song of the Seamstress 

I could clasp whole worlds of deadliest pain, 

Kiss every stroke of the rod 
That should scourge my poor soul back again 

To its early love for God. 

But it may not be; for on every side 

I am spurned and unforgiven, 
And trampled beneath the heels of pride 

By the very sons of heaven. 
So I needs must cling to my fearful life 

With the curse upon my head, 
In the Christless doom of this dreadful strife 

For a sheltering roof and bread." 



SONG OF THE SEAMSTRESS 

IT is twelve o'clock by the city's chime, 
And my task is not yet done; 
Through two more weary hours of time 

Must my heavy eyes ache on. 
I may not suffer my tears to come, 

And I dare not stop to feel; 
For each idle moment steals a crumb 
From my sad to-morrow's meal. 

187 



Song of the Seamstress 

It is very cold in this cheerless room, 

And my limbs are strangely chill; 
My pulses beat with a sense of doom, 

And my very heart seems still; 
But I shall not care for this so much, 

If my fingers hold their power, 
And the hand of sleep forbears to touch 

My eyes for another hour. 



I wish I could earn a little more, 

And live in another street, 
Where I need not tremble to pass the door, 

And shudder at all I meet. 
"Tis a fearful thing that a friendless girl 

Forever alone should dwell 
In the midst of scenes enough to hurl 

A universe to hell. 



God knows that I do not wish to sink 

In the pit that yawns around; 
But I cannot stand on its very brink, 

As I could on purer ground; 
I do not think that my strength is gone, 

Nor fear for my shortening breath; 
But the terrible winter is coming on, 

And I must not starve to death. 



Hashish 

I wish I had died with sister Rose, 

Ere hunger and I were mates; 
Ere I felt the grip of the thought that grows 

The hotter the more it waits. 
I am sure that He whom they curse to me, 

The Father of all our race, 
Did not mean the world He made to be 

Such a dark and dreary place. 

I would not mind if they'd only give 

A little less meager pay, 
And spare me a moment's time to grieve, 

With a little while to pray. > 
But until these far-off blessings come, 

I may neither weep nor kneel; 
For, alas! 'twould cost me a precious crumb 

Of my sad to-morrow's meal. 



HASHISH 

IF ever you should desire to gain 
A glimpse of the primal regions where 
The vital tissues o' the heart lie bare, 
The intricate coils of life are plain; 

If you have strength enough to dare 
The apocalypse which turns the brain 

189 



Hashish 

With too much peering of mortal eyes 

Into the immortalities, 
And — stabbed with splendors that hurt like pain- 
Wake from the gorgeous dream at last 

Dogged by phantoms which cleave and cling 

Closer than any living thing, 
Haunting your future with their past, 

Liming you in a charmed ring. 

Cutting you with a wizard wing 

Out from the darkness, till you die — 

Eat of the hashish, as did I. 

It was not the drug of the Orient, 

With which the poet simulates 
A warmth in his veins when the fires are spent, 

A flight in the blue when the bitter weights 
Of the world have broken his wings; it was 
More beautiful, awful, terrible! 
Clothed on with fantasies which surpass 

Whatever is known of heaven or hell, 

When, under the touch of the other spell, 

Back the mystical curtains roll, 

And up, unscreened, to the seeing soul, 

Past and present and future rise, 

Bearing the secrets in their eyes. 

She could not help that she distilled 
A blessed aroma all around; 

190 



Hashish 

She could not help it that she filled 
My arid silence with cooing sound; 

She could not help that her sweet face 
Was as a reverential hymn; 

She could not help that round her place 
Lingered the Lord God's cherubim. 



Was it so strange that, brooding thus, 

Over her saintly humanhood, 
Deliriums multitudinous 

Wrought in my pulses and my blood ? 
That I dreamed dear dreams of a wedded wife? 

That some one walked in my sleep by my side ? 
That I stood in a tremulous hush of life, 

Content to stand so until I died ? 
Oh, the clear beneficent days! 

Oh, the calm and reverent nights! 
Oh, the mornings of perfect praise! 

Oh, the evenings of pure delights! 
Oh, the whispers in which we talked! 

Oh, arch replies of merry lips! 
Oh, the trances wherein we walked! 

And the beautiful fellowships! 
Spirit with spirit so ingrooved, 

Sympathies so divinely blent, 
My blessing watched the flowers she loved, 

And made my poverty opulent, 

191 



"Mollie" 

The well-pleased angels smiling on 
That most ineffable unison! 

No trance is life-long; all dreams flee — 

I am awake now; something cut 
The path of the currents lifting me, 

And close the inscrutable blankness shut 
Down on my mount Delectable; 

Down on my fields Elysian; 
Down on my Palace Beautiful! 

Over the universe something ran 
Which trod the gold and the amethyst 

Out from the mornings and the eves; 

Something withered the grass and leaves; 
Out from the vastness something hissed; 

And something within me moans and grieves, 
Like a lost soul's wail for something missed. 



"MOLUE" 

IS the grave deep, dear? Deeper still is love. 
They cannot hide thee from thy father's heart, 
Thou liest below, and I stand here above; 
Yet are we not apart. 

192 



"Mollie" 

The lyric patter of thy blessed feet 

That made a poem of the nursery floor — 
The sweet eyes dancing toward me down the street — 
Are with me evermore. 

My breath is balmy with thy clinging kiss, 
My hand is soft wherein thy soft palm lay; 
And yet there is something which I miss 
And mourn for night and day. 

My eyes ache for thee. God's heaven is so high 
We can not see its singers: when thou dost 
With thy lark's voice make palpitant all the sky, 
I moan and pain the most. 

Because the hunger of my vision runs 
Most swift in its swift seeking after thee, 
I yearn through all the systems and the suns, 
But none doth answer me. 

And then I grow a-weary, and do tire; 
And not my darlings in their earthly place 
Can wean the passion with which I desire 
Thy lips upon my face. 

If I could fondle with thee for an hour! — 
But now thou art too sacred. I must stand 
Silent and reverent: thou hast grown to power, 
And fitness, and command; 

193 



"He Giveth His Beloved Rest" 

And I walk here. Thou art above me now. 
I may not longer teach thee anything. 
Thou dost not need my blessing on thy brow, 
Nor any comforting. 

How changed — how changed! A little while ago, 
And all the beautiful vast care was mine. 
Out from my bosom gushed the overflow 
Of sacrificial wine. 

And now thou art God's angel unto me. 
Thus His ways mix, and He is ever good. 
Reach me thy hand, wife; we are held all three 
In His infinitude. 



HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED REST" 

O'ER mile-long tracks of ice and snow 
And endless sodden wastes of woe, 
It came a little while ago. 

My life stood so much at the worst, 
I seemed so bitterly accurst, 
I hardly knew it at the first. 

194 



"He Giveth His Beloved Rest" 

It grew not on me suddenly, 

With such swift shining as might lie 

In light down-streaming from the sky — 

A great and mighty rushing thrill 
Of glory flooding at my will, 
And into good transforming ill. 

But with such saintly-meek degrees 

Of motherly-sweet influences 

As softly pressed me to my knees, 

And warmly touched my praying lips 
With words of strange new fellowships 
Strong-winged like homeward-freighted ships; 

And with white hands of tenderness 
So led me forth from my distress 
To places that were sorrowless, 

That at the last I could but say, 
' O Spirit, lead me night and day, 
And I will follow thee alway. 

Thou art more gentle to me now 
In this great grief whereto I bow, 
Than mother-kisses on my brow; 

195 



"He Giveth His Beloved Rest' 

Fuller of solace and of rest 

Than place upon my mother's breast 

When I was wearily opprest. 



" Her sacred eyes were tender-bright 
With large excess of love and light, 
In the sweet time of her good-night; 

" But thy calm orbs with greater store 
Of holy warmth are suffused o'er, 
And they do thrill me more and more. 



" Her voice was very soothing-low; 
But thine doth overfill me so 
With such a wonder-clasping glow, 

" And so much beautiful increase 
Of luminous seraphic peace 
Is in thy patient utterances, 

*' That I can only kneel and pray, 
O Spirit, guide me night and day, 
And I will follow thee alway." 



196 



I REMEMBER 

I REMEMBER— I remember 
In the dying of the year, 
When I used to pine and sicken 

For a little human cheer; 
How unto my crazy letters 

Came her answers warm and true, 
Quickening all the blood within me — 
I remember — yes I do. 

I remember — I remember 

When I reached my home once more, 
How I hurried thro' the city 

'Till I stood before her door; 
How I leaped along the stairway, 

How the staring servant flew 
With the message of the stranger — 

I remember — yes I do. 

I remember — I remember 

How my foolish pulses shook, 
When she met me in the parlor 

With the old beloved look; 
How my full eyes wet their lashes, 

How it thrilled me through and through 
When her dark orbs leaned toward me — 

I remember — yes I do. 

197 



Communion 

I remember — I remember 

All our earnest poet-talks, 
All our mystic music-dreamings, 

Held in blessed city-walks; 
How we sat among the pictures 

Which the prophet-painters drew; 
And the speech of marble statues 

I remember — yes I do. 

I remember — I remember 

How her sacred counsellings 
Went across my moody nature 

Like a sweep of angel wings; 
All the fellowship she gave me, 

All the peace that from it grew, 
And the weary, weary parting — 

I remember — yes I do. 



COMMUNION 

THE somber daylight dies, mother, 
It is the quiet even — 
The hour when thy dear eyes, mother, 
Are brooding toward heaven. 

198 



Communion 

Thy life is lifted there, mother, 
For all thy scattered sheep: 

mind! O soul! O care, mother, 
A mother's prayer is deep. 

Across the aching sea, mother, 

Is drawn a mystic chain 
Which lengthens unto me, mother, 

And back to thee again, 
And skyward then doth grow, mother, 

Beyond the utmost star; 
Ah! only angels know, mother, 

How many links there are. 

It tightens round me now, mother, 

I feel my spirit come 
Swifter than speeding prow, mother, 

To thee, and peace, and home. 

1 walk the hallowed ground, mother, 
I see thee turn, and start — 

And now, with one vast bound, mother, 
I fall upon thy heart. 

We sing the olden hymn, mother, 

Unto the olden strain: — 
What makes our eyes grow dim, mother, 

With beatific rain ? 

199 



Impatience 

How far the world removes, mother, 
What soft spells o'er me creep: — 

O, in thy love of loves, mother, 
I wrap me up and sleep! 



IMPATIENCE 

OGod, the earth is trampled down, 
In sin and shame it lieth; 
From every land beneath the sun 

A voice accusing crieth. 
The nations strive in deadly wars, 
The cannon speaks in thunder: 
Arise, and break the prison bars, 
And rend the chains asunder!" 



The earth is worn by cries of death, 

And vexed by petty tyrants; 
Sad wailings rise on every breath; 

Thou only keepest silence. 
Where angels with the harp and song 

In heaven's courts adore Thee, 
Can ever mortal grief or wrong 

Or prayers come up before Thee ? 



Impatience 

Yes; the deep mystery unfolds 

In light of Revelation; 
Sealed for the latter times He holds 

His wine of indignation. 
Earth's wanderers murmur in their night: 

" His chariot-wheels turn slowly;" 
Angels that see Him in the light 

Make answer: " Holy, holy!" 



Justice sits throned overhead, 

Beyond the highest places; 
It is not for our feet to tread 

Where angels veil their faces; 
Before the burning of the Seven 

We earthly well may falter; 
We only know the answer given 

The souls beneath the altar. 



In white robes stand the witnesses, 

Mid incense-clouds enwreathing; 
" How long ? " they cry — a little space 

Before the sword's unsheathing. 
Daily with that accusing band 

The earth's down-trodden gather; 
And ministers of vengeance stand 

Ever before the Father. 



* ' My Love is Deep ' ' 

Faith sees His purpose shining pure 

Beyond our sight's discerning. 
O, just and equal, slow and sure 

The mills of God are turning! 
Even so, Great Ruler! on whose crown 

Eternal years are hoary; 
We lay in dust our wisdom down — 

Thy patience is Thy glory. 



202 



MISCELLANEOUS 



"MY LOVE IS DEEP" 

SOME wild things have I dared, and some 
Strange things have hoped. I cannot see 
If these high hopes are doomed to be 
Dashed from the heights they've clomb. 



The wind is raging very high, 

The earth is strewn with autumn leaves, 
Mournful as when the spirit grieves 

Its summer hopes should die. 

It's midnight now! And flickering low 
The wasted wick burns drear and dim. 
About my brain strange fancies swim, 

Strange feelings round me flow. 



I cannot sigh, I cannot weep; 

I smile not, yet I am not sad. 

I mourn not, yet I am not glad 
I've learned my love is deep. 



205 



LOVE'S FEAR 

1LONG, yet fear to love! for I have seen 
So much of falsehood and so much of guile, 
And I have known such dark and deadly sin 

Lurk in the silence of a beaming smile, 
And in my own heart-chambers there have been 

So many sorrows rankling all the while, 
That when my soul sits brooding like a dove 
I think of this — and long, yet fear to love! 

I long, yet fear to love! I could not bear 
To fling my rich affections unto one 

Whose inmost spirit was not wholly fair 

In love less pure and lavish than mine own; 

And then my heart would break in its despair 
To find the visions it had dreamed o'erthrown; 

So, when my heart to pulses wildly move, 

I think of this — and long, yet fear to love. 

I long, yet fear to love! My soul hath bled 
From its too perfect trust in vows unkept, 

And I had deemed that all my love was dead. 
Yet now I know that it hath only slept; 

206 



To Harriet 

But, oh! if evermore about my head 

There sweeps the tempest that before hath swept, 

Heart, mind and brain would wrecked and shattered 

prove, 
And knowing this — I long, yet fear to love! 

I long, yet fear to love! Oh! who will come 
And speak the words I am athirst to hear? 

O, who will make this yearning heart her home 
And lie there, thrilling thro' each mystic year? 

And who will touch these lips so cold and dumb 
With the live coal from love's own altar clear? 

Is there no answer? Must my spirit rove 

Unwoke as now ? and long, yet fear to love ? 



TO HARRIET 

SHE was not lovely, but to me 
She was as holy as the night, 
When the strange stars are flinging light 
Thro' heaven's eternity. 

I have turned from them to her and wept; 
And when I saw her earnest eyes 

207 



To Harriet 

Flashing such solemn sympathies, 
Jesu! I could have leapt 

Right thro* her eyes into her heart, 
And ask'd no higher heaven than this, 
To closely nestle in my bliss 

And never more depart. 

O, Harriet! thou hast been to me 
Like a pale crystalline tear 
Set round with smiles. I cannot hear 
What I am unto thee! 



I know not, but my brain is wild! 
And yet I have been sometimes blest 
With visions of thyself, and rest 

Have on my day-dreams smiled. 

And I have seen thee weep, and then 
I longed to kiss the tears away, 
And see thee like an April day 
Change into joy again. 

And I have held thy hand in mine! 
I would have pressed it to my heart, 

208 



The Faint Adieu 

But that I feared it might impart 
Some bitterness to thine. 



And I have dared to place my fingers 
On thy sweet forehead and thy hair, 
And aye, I marvel much if there 

One mark of mine still lingers. 



One mark of mine, one thought of me! 
Harriet, it is not much I ask, 
But, oh! 'twill be a bitter task 

To tear my heart from thee! 



THE FAINT ADIEU 

SHE hung upon his neck, suffused in tears 
Like a flower bending with its weight of dew, 
Weeping as tho' the griefs of all her years 
Lay in the fountains of her orbs of blue; 
And then there came — scarce heard by their own ears, 

Whispers of constancy — the faint adieu, 
At last one long, rapt kiss, a stifled moan, 
Receding footsteps, and she stood — alone! 

209 



Summer Night 

They parted all too soon! just when the fire 
Of each heart's passion sparkled in their eyes; 

Just when the bloom of all young life's desire 

Had tinged their warm cheeks with its tell-tale dyes; 

Just when love's finger struck the trembling lyre 
And woke the sound that all too quickly dies, 

Yet never died with them that hour they parted, 

And each past on in silence, weary-hearted. 

They never met again! The world was cold, 

And fate was haughty while their friends were stern, 

As life passed quickly and they soon grew old, 
Laying their young hopes in its funeral urn. 

Both hands are clasped around it! Both hearts fold 
Beneath their wings that past to which they turn; 

The ruined shrine where all their sympathies 

Worship forevermore with streaming eyes. 



SUMMER NIGHT 

COME here and look at God ! The great round moon 
Hangs 'mong the stars upon the verge of heaven 
Like a vast hope within a boundless soul 
Brimful of lofty majesty; the stars 
Wait on her steps as blooming pages wak 
Upon a reigning queen. Onward she sweeps 

210 



Summer Night 

With regal footsteps up the vaulted sky, 

Beaming her smiles upon her satellites 

As on her suitors beams a peerless maid. 

Far in the west the glowing heaven bends down, 

Kissing the sunset hills — like a rapt youth 

Embracing his beloved. In the south 

The boundless ocean, slumbering peacefully, 

Looks like eternity at rest. Our ship 

With her white folded wings lies anchored there 

Like an angel sleeping on the breast of God. 

Hid in yon thicket's heart, the nightingale 

Pours her wild music in the ear of night 

Till it seems drunk with joy. Hark! How her song 

Wells forth delicious from a joyous heart, 

Sweet as the music of an angel's harp 

Attuned by Gabriel's hand. How mystical 

And dream-like comes the murmur of the stream 

That babbles thro' the meadows; it is like 

A virgin beauty who in bridal dreams 

Vaguely, and in half words, tells to the night 

The secret of her soul! 

The panting breeze 
Throbs tremulous on yon green hill of pines, 
Like the hopeful trembling of a stripling's heart, 
Earnest, yet all untried. Far off I see 
The red fires gleaming in the village homes, 
Flashing their strange lights even at my feet, 
As prophets flash their gorgeous flaming thoughts 



On Receipt of a Daguerreotype 

Across the nick of time. The green earth sleeps 
Beneath the eye of heaven, like a fair girl, 
O'er whose white finger the betrothal ring, 
Graven with her lover's name and set with gems, 
Lies glittering like the stars — for thus hath God 
Writ his solemn name upon the virgin earth, 
Whom he will one day wed. 



ON RECEIPT OF A DAGUERREOTYPE 

THE flashing light may liven thy form 
In living lines of breathing grace, 
May give each tint a tone as warm 

As that which melts o'er thy dear face; 
But in my soul and on my heart 
With deeper colors, truer aim, 
A loftier power than meager art 

Hath graved thy image and thy name. 

And rain or wind, and storm or shine 

May mar the sunlight's subtlest skill, 
While all the floods and frosts of time 

But cut thine image deeper still; 
For love is not like earthly things, 

To die when it is old and hoar; 
With its true heart and buoyant wings 

It swells and soars forevermore. 



"BUT LET IT PASS" 

" Do not write in my album; write separately.''' 

AY, it is well! my fierce and fiery mood 
Would ill beseem its wealth of whispered hopes. 
Aye, it is well! for Etna's molten flood 

And the deep greenery of summer slopes — 
Things utterly apart — like love and hate, 
Should, as thou say'st, be far and separate. 

And yet perchance their love must yield to mine 
In height and depth and madding earnestness, 

For when a poet drinks of love's strong wine 
His calmest dreams are passionate excess: 

Wherefore — but let that pass! I am thy brother, 

And yet I love thee as I love none other. 



None other, no, not one: there was a time — 
Let that too pass — her grave is o'er the sea 

Among the purple billows of a clime 

That broke her heart, and crushed and maddened me; 

But that it is my Mother's biding place, 

I should ere this have curst it and its race! 

213 



"But Let It Pass" 

I had some things to say: I know not what, 

I am as one who wanders in a trance; 
I only know my brain is wild and hot, 

That my blood swiftens, and my proud heart pants 
With a new madness, sweet, yet terrible, 
I reck not if it be of heaven or hell. 

I had some things to say; but let them pass, 
I will not wrong thy heart with selfish words; 

And more — my life is withering as the grass 
Withers away on sunny slopes and swards, 

'Neath the keen edge of the remorseless scythe: 

Well — let it cut: thou hast not seen me writhe. 

And yet remember me as one whose soul 
Was not all fret, or phantasy, or flame, 

But write me on thy heart, as on a scroll, 

One whose strange spirit sorrow could not tame, 

Rash — yet no craven; his own nature's slave, 

And headlong as a fierce careering wave. 

Farewell! and do not utterly forget 
Him who would peril his immortality, 

For one close kiss of thine; when our eyes met, 
Didst thou not think mine own looked yearningly ? 

Gleamed they not hotly — even as molten brass ? 

Ay! and thine own were calm: but let it pass. 

214 



A FRAGMENT 

[From an unfinished poem.] 

TO-NIGHT the moon is pale! Twelve moons 
to-night 
And at this hour and on this spot, I stood 
Thrilling with manly pride. I'd set a gem 
On the forehead of the world, and as I stood 
Looking far out into the pensive night, 
I saw it throbbing on man's stately brow 
As a star throbs on the arched front of heaven. 
And on the wings of the hushed and stilly air 
There came a murmur of applause from men 
Whose wondering hearts ensphered its flushing light. 

She, too, was here — o'ercharged with earnest love, 

Like a young angel brimming o'er with bliss, 

Leaning on me with such a fervent trust 

As holy saints lean on the arm of God! 

I was her God! her spirit lay in mine 

All pure and pearly, as a dewdrop lies 

Emboldened in a rose's heart. She clung 

Unto my soul with such a jealous love 

As a young mother clings unto the babe 

That made her first a matron; here she stood 

215 



The Palace of Thought 

With her white finger pointing to the sky, 
Thick sown with lustrous stars, as earth is sown 
With cherub children's eyes. 

" Clement," she said, 
These are thy witnesses," then burst in tears 
Like a full cloud pouring its heart in rain. 



THE PALACE OF THOUGHT 

1DO believe a grand thought never dies, 
I do believe that after-love is best, 
When the strange fire that lay within the eyes 

And the wild singing of the heart's unrest 
Have passed away, and we are calm and wise, 
And think upon the love that makes us blest; 
I do believe there's more of heaven in this 
Than all the eloquence of earlier bliss. 

We reel beneath the first as from a blow; 

We watch its splendor till our eyes are dim; 
We revel in its nectar till we grow 

Dizzy and drunken, faint in every limb; 
And so we sleep and dream, then wake to know 

Our rapturous songs have deepened to a hymn, 
Whose sweeter music, like a heavenly psalm, 
Freshens our souls with drops of holy balm. 

216 



The Palace of Thought 

Ay; there it stands, crowning the grand old woods 
Like a white angel on a hill of thought, 

Peopling the song-birds' ancient solitudes 
With deeper joy than spring-time ever brought, 

As, full of lofty majesty, it broods 

O'er the fair images that are unwrought 

In its transparent soul, while serfs and kings 

Rest in the cool shade of its mighty wings. 



Thou'rt wedded to our years, and it is well. 

We are impulsive, and do need a bride 
Whose rapt affection lives unchangeable 

Thro' all our days of loneliness and pride; 
So we may lean upon her love, and dwell 

In the pure heart where rest is, till the tide 
That o'er our being flings its boisterous waves 
Rolls surging back into the sullen caves. 

As a fond mother, with o'er-brimming heart 
Stands up and gospels all her sons with truth, 

While the warm tears that all unbidden start 
Throb back an answer from the soul of youth; 

So stand thou up forever, and impart 

To the world's heart all fair things that may 
smoothe 

The rugged heights of that stupendous shore, 

O'er which we hasten on for evermore! 

217 



' ' There is Hope for Thee" 

A stream of souls runs thro' thee, and I hear 
The dreamy murmur of their sympathies, 

And how, like pealing thunder on my ear, 

There burst the solemn, grand old symphonies 

Which, like the music of the upper sphere, 
Are but the lofty-languaged utterances 

Of highest yearnings, and all earnest dreams 

That lie in thy pure heart, like pearls in streams. 

But now, adieu! Thy greatness is so vast, 
I cannot grasp its wide immensity; 

I muse upon the grandeur that thou hast 
Till I am lost as on a boundless sea; 

And so, farewell! My heart is throbbing fast, 
Its hopes, like tears, run streaming into thee; 

I see them pulsing on thy leaves and flowers 

As on earth's greenery hang the joyous showers. 



< ' THERE IS HOPE FOR THEE" 

THERE is hope for thee, poor erring one 
With sin and sorrow curst and crushed, 
Through the thick darkness gleams the sun, 
With a pale, sad beauty flushed. 

218 



''There is Hope for Thee M 

The lone wind sobbeth not so loud, 
Heaven's breath is kissing flower and tree, 
The blue sky bursts through yonder cloud — 
There is hope, poor soul, for thee! 



There is hope for thee, poor erring heart 
All torn and bleeding and unblest, 
There are balm-leaves to anoint the part 

That's festering in thy breast. 
There are aids for all thy trembling limbs 
Till they are firm and strong and free, 
There are tearful hopes and prayerful hymns 

Breathed forth, poor heart, for thee! 



Yes! there is hope for thee, poor soul, 
All wild and wayward as thou wast, 
So let the future moments toll 

The death-knell of the past. 
There are eyes that strain to see thee start, 
And bosoms panting like a sea, 
Press onward then, poor sorrowing heart, 

For there is hope for thee! 



219 



"DEAL GENTLY" 

DEAL gently with the fallen one, 
Thou who hast kept thy higher birth; 
Pray for the erring heart, nor shun 

The outcast of the earth. 
Thou knowest not the heavy waves 
Of agony which o'er him roll, 
Thou canst not tell the woe that laves 
Forever round his soul. 

Deal gently with the fallen one, 
Speak lovingly to the unwise, 
Perchance repentance hath begun 

Its work of tears and sighs. 
And kindly words in earnest given, 
With gentle hopes in love expressed, 
May win a soul from earth to heaven, 

And give the wearied rest. 

Deal gently with the fallen one, 
All dark and guilty tho he be, 
For scorn is not of heaven, and none 
Are from the tempter free; 

220 



My Lost One 

We all may sin ; thou mightest err, 
Should syren tongues thy ears accost, 
O friend, be then a comforter 
Unto the lonely lost! 



MY LOST ONE 

I am young in years, yet old in woe, 
And my hair is necked with gray, 
And I pass thro' life like a dreamer now, 
While none may read from eye or brow 
That the light hath passed away. 

I have lived with a love as high as heaven 

And deep as the lowest hell, 

I have seen my life's hopes crusht and riven, 
Till, aye, like a bolt of burning levin, 

The agony on me fell. 

I have lain on the bosom of one as fair 

As a dream of young delight; 

I have felt her hand on my dark brown hair, 
And the touch of her lips was pure and rare 

As the thrill of starry night. 



My Lost One 

The passionate gush of her wild, sweet song, 

And the light of her loving eye 

With the flame in her heart were all mine own, 
For our joyous loves had grown so strong 

They never more might die. 

But a wrinkled wordling, ripe for hell, 
Came in with his hoard of gold, 

And robbed my heart of its Annabel. 

God! How my soul did burn and swell 
As I stood and saw her sold. 

Ay! Bartered off with a broken heart 

At mammon's damned shrine, 

But the chords of her young life snapped apart, 
And she felt no more the terrible dart 

That's thrust forever in mine. 

So, I live along in a strange wild trance, 
And await my time to die. 

1 am often thrilled with an eloquent glance, 
And my soul leaps up and my spirit pants, 

'Neath glance of a luminous eye. 

But oh! When the midnight hour is on 

And the past goes flitting by, 

With its fearful eyes and its hollow moan, 
I hold my heart by a smothered groan 

And pray that I may die. 



THE POET'S WEALTH 

WHO says the poet's lot is hard ? 
Who says it is with misery rife? 
Who pities the deluded bard 

That dreams away his life ? 
Go thou and give thy sympathy 

Unto the crowd of common men ; 
The poet needs it not, for he 
Hath joys beyond thy ken. 

Yea, he hath many a broad domain 

Which thou, O man, hath never seen, 
Where never comes the pelting rain 

Or stormy winter keen. 
There ever balmy is the air, 

And ever smiling are the skies, 
For beauty ever blossoms there — 

Beauty that never dies. 

There sportive fancy loves to roam 
And cull the sweets from every flower, 

While meditation builds her home 
Beneath some forest-bower; 

223 



My Lost Tones 

There, too, the poet converse holds 
With spirit of the long ago, 

And dim futurity unfolds 
Secrets for him to know. 

Then say not that in wretchedness 

The poet spends his weary days, 
Say not that hunger and distress 

Are guerdon for his lays; 
But rather say that lack of gold 

Unto the bard is greatest bliss, 
And say, he is not earth-controlled 

Whilst owning wealth like this. 



MY LOST TONES 

I AM old, perchance, before my time, 
And my heart is wet with tears, 
While on my life is the frost and rime 
Of the gathered storms of years. 

There is many a ruined shrine that lies 
In the paths which I have trod, 

And much that's buried from human eyes 
And only known to God. 

224 



My Lost Tones 

There is many a love that hath grown cold, 

And many an unkept vow, 
And much — oh! how much, that I would fold 

To my lonely spirit now. 

There is wild, vague music floating down 

Thro' the dim departed days, 
But I can not note whence comes the tone, 

So thick is the tearful haze. 

Perchance 'tis the wail of wild unrest 
From the years that have passed by, 

Or it may be discord from the sobbing breath 
Of some dream I left to die. 

Ah well! there's a shadow across my brow, 

There's a mist before my sight, 
Yet the beautiful thought is o'er me now 

That the stars are with the night. 

I know that the seeming ills of fate 
Are but love's in strange disguise, 

And that even the terrible specter, hate, 
May have soft and motherly eyes. 

So I wait; and perchance in the Far-to-be 
I shall find that the mystic hymn 

Which seemed so solemn and sad to me, 
Was the voice of the cherubim. 

225 



AGONY 

ONCE when I and Sorrow pondered 
O'er the wealth my soul had squandered, 
In the days when pride and passion 

Burned within me like a hell; 
Then my life grew pale and haggard, 
And my spirit reeled and staggered 
With the agony that tore it, 
In the dream that on me fell. 

In the calm of summer even, 
When the angels unperceiven 
Come and wave their snowy pinions 

O'er our fetter-furrowed brows; 
Ere the morn had yet arisen 
I had set myself to listen 
For the stars, whose eyes would watch me 

Thro' the green-leaved chestnut boughs. 

And I waited long, and longer. 
And the yearning still grew stronger 
For the coming of the starlight 

Out into the quiet skies. 
Then my soul was wet and glistening, 
And my spirit ached with listening, 
Till at last like madden'd famine 

Flashed the yearning thro' my eyes. 

226 



Agony 

Like a rare and queenly maiden 
With a wealth of beauty laden, 
Moving with a grace imperial 

Rose the golden-tressed moon; 
But her calm and stately glory 
Unto me seemed old and hoary, 
For the stars alone I waited 

On that solemn night in June. 



And the lengthening shadows lengthened,. 
And the famine grew and strengthened, 
As the soft winds smote my forehead, 

Swept like kisses thro' my hair; 
But the deep and earnest gladness 
Came like mockery to my madness, 
When I turned to heaven, imploring — 

But the stars were never there! 



And the gracious moon kept brightening 
As my spirit leapt like lightning, 
And my eyeballs were consuming 

With the agonizing heat; 
And a white dove settled near me, 
Neither did the songbirds fear me, 
For a robin came and warbled 

In a rosebush at my feet. 

227 



Agony 

And I quivered like an aspen 
When the whirlwind hath it claspen, 
And the hells of aspiration 

Flamed with thousand-fold desire; 
But upon my strange perdition 
Fell no sanctifying vision, 
So the molten anguish mounted 

Till my soul was all on fire. 



Then this feeling wakened slowly, 
That my soul had grown unholy, 
And I knew I was a leper 

As my waning life grew dim; 
And the wind rose wild and tearful, 
Then again fell low and fearful, 
With a broken-hearted wailing 

Like an unloved orphan's hymn. 



And I knew that I was dying, 
As the solemn wind kept sighing, 
In its prelude to the requiem 

It should utter o'er my soul; 
While my strained eyes grew leaden 
And my limbs began to deaden, 
As a torment writhed throughout me- 

'Twas the last dreg in the bowl. 

228 



The Human Statue 

Then a blessed dream came to me, 
And I heard my first love woo me, 
Till her warm tears rained like music 

On my swoll'n and livid lips; 
And her sweet and low-voiced breathing 
Quenched the fire within me seething, 
And I knew my soul had trembled 

Thro' its terrible eclipse. 

So my soul awoke from dreaming, 
While the holy stars were beaming 
Like the gentle eyes of mothers, 

When their trust is all in heaven; 
So, my trembling spirit's sadness 
Melted into blessed gladness, 
As I 'rose and bowed my forehead, 

For I knew I was forgiven. 



THE HUMAN STATUE 

An address delivered before the students of Warnersville 
Academy, New York, June 2, 1855. 

WE all do carve as statues evermore! 
And some are sculptured with most living 
skill, 
And some are rude and lowly; while some seem 

229 



The Human Statue 

So strangely fair in their deformity 
We weep, and loathe, and cling unto them still: 
And thus are shaped life's subtle essences, 
And thus all things do symbolize the soul. 

Therefore, O friends — in this your earnest youth — 

When loftiest visions of the future stand 

Throbbing before your sight, note every line 

In their high-thoughted features, and so carve 

The grand hope into form, that it shall stand 

Through all the years majestic 'fore your sight 

As a white statue from its pedestal 

Smiles on the sculptor whose large skill has wrought 

Thus into wondrous symmetry the thought 

That erst lay in his soul. 

Dig deep for truth, 
And when your hands have struck the hidden vein 
Its waters shall gush up to meet your lips 
With a most tempting loveliness, whereof 
Your souls may sate their thirst forevermore. 
So live, and ye shall nourish; and, perchance, 
When your green springtime, with its buds and 

blooms, 
Passes to the ripe autumn, there shall be 
Such mellow plenty of rich-flavored fruit 
That the old epicure — the world — shall bend 

230 



The Human Statue 

And stagger beneath her treasures, as a vine 
Totters beneath its luscious load of grapes. 

So live, and ye shall flourish! And if all 

The fibers of each heart do cling to heaven; 

If all your wealth of sympathies be flung 

Above the skies — above the burning stars — 

Above all glories up to our own God, 

Then shall your souls have prescience of all time, 

And stand among the angels! 

Ye shall speak 
And men shall hear in wonder, for your voice 
Shall sway the nations as a shaken reed; 
The long, long suffering then shall come to you, 
And the heart-broken — all the tearless ones — 
With those who writhe in bondage; and your souls 
Shall kneel before their sorrows, and shall weep, 
Then rise up stern and mighty! When your eyes 
Shall loose their leaping lightnings, and your lips 
Unroll their crashing thunders, till all wrong 
Trembles like creeping murder in the night. 

And smiles shall be about you, and warm tears, 
And gladness as the sunshine. You shall rest 
Your love upon all children, and gray hairs 
Shall thrill your hearts like music! Ye shall be 

231 



The Human Statue 

Children of poesy, loving all flowers, 
Rejoicing in all tempests! Ye shall speak 
The meaning of the mountains, and unfold 
The mysteries that do lie within the stars, 
And wait in quiet valleys! Unto you 
The winds shall be a languaged utterance, 
And streams shall have in you another voice, 
And seas, and roaring torrents! 

Ye shall read 
And render in our tongue the solemn hymn 
Anthemed by all the ages! And our souls 
Shall garner up the kingdom of your thought, 
And form a mighty universe of mind. 

Therefore, O friends, in this your earnest youth, 

" Excelsior" be ever on your lips; 

Tell out your message boldly in the ear 

Of the great world, and from the dark eclipse 

Drag forth the hidden light. Then ye shall hear 

The harmony of angels, and the strain 

Of the high One's own choristers; and then 

The voice ye breathe unto the sons of men 

Shall catch the music of the other sphere 

And back to your own hearts return in love again. 



232 






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